Beyond the Parahypogean
by opens up 4 nobody
Summary: Bright eyed geologist, Naruto Uzumaki, has landed his dream job of studying the Konoha cave system. It becomes quickly apparent that things are a little different just a short drive down the road. In this strange place he has come to, troglofauna may not be the only things lurking in the darkness.
1. Turn To Stone

Let's take a better look  
beyond a story book  
And learn our souls are all we own  
before we turn to stone

-"Turn To Stone" Ingrid Michaelson

XxxX

Rain was falling lightly onto the canopy of trees as Naruto stood still, his bright blue eyes locked on the small blue-gray house that was now his. He had moved in yesterday, an ordeal that had lasted all of the day and caused him to completely crash before he had a chance to appreciate the fact that he now lived there. At the moment he was trying to make up for it by standing in the rain as it sprinkled down onto his golden hair, plating it to his head in the way the rain always did in the springtime. The house was about fifteen years old and in fair condition. It was small but he didn't have a need for a big house so that suited him just fine.

The house itself was located along a pretty country road surrounded on all sides by large moss covered trees. It was in an old forest and the thickness of the trunks illustrated that point beautifully. This area had not been cleared of it's forests with the arrival of foreigners, they were ancient woods. Naruto had always been an outdoorsy person so he felt right at home in these woods, nature was home to him when he had no home. This area was actually quite unique and, in fact, that was why he was there. Naruto was a geologist and he had come to study the large cave system in this area, under this area to be correct.

The cave system, known as the Konoha Cave System, had been reportedly discovered in the very early 1900s although it had likely been explored before that time by the people of the area seeing as there were signatures carved into the rocky interior from before that time. Whenever it had been discovered, it had been fascinating geologists like him ever since with its strange formations and wonderful insights to cave life. A combination of acidic water and limestone was all it took to make something so beautiful and strange. The system was not entirely mapped out and every year the recorded size grew thanks to the dedicated explorers who made it their mission to find the cave's end.

Exploring caves like these was not always an easy task. The caverns were often very small, only just large enough to army crawl through. A lot of people couldn't take the feeling of being enclosed under miles of stone with only one way out. It was even more difficult because they couldn't take much in the way of supplies with them, it wasn't like they could just bring down a big backpack. Then there were all the issues of sleeping, animals, and eating surrounded by the dirt and rock of the cave walls. It could be a rather hostile environment at times but that didn't stop people from exploring. In fact, these challenges made the caves all the more interesting and enticing.

Naruto had always had his heart set on working here with the caves, but now he had finally sealed the deal. When he was little he had always been interested in rocks and minerals, he had been one of the weird kids who kept a massive rock collection. He had boxes and boxes of arrowheads, he had geodes both thinly sliced and whole, he had rocks that glowed under black light, he had showcase boxes of special rocks, he had crystals that looked like diamonds half inside chunks of stone, he had lots of little fossils, and more. He loved his rocks but they hadn't earned him any friends, nothing he ever did seemed to attract friends. People just didn't seem to like him no matter how hard he tried, he just made them uncomfortable with his loud voice and intense personality. He tried not to let it get him down, there was always a reason to keep his head high, he told himself. Naruto was never the type to show that he was seriously upset about something, it was much easier to deal with things with a smile than a frown. He had a of weight to pull him down though.

His mother had died in childbirth and apparently his father had never been in the picture, he had no idea who he was or if he was even still alive. He didn't know if he had any relatives but if he did then none of them had ever taken any interest in him. He had been an orphan and had cycled through foster care until he was nine which was when he met Jiraiya, a man who had apparently been friends with his mother. He just showed up one day and Naruto was never sure why he hadn't been there before but at least he showed up at all. Jiraiya was an explorer, although he worked as a biologist specializing in amphibious. He adopted Naruto and took him on his many adventures, some more traumatizing than others. Jiraiya did have the tendency of being a huge pervert after all. Naruto may have picked up on some of his foster father's bad habits but all kids tended to do that. Despite some of his serious flaws Jiraiya was always good to Naruto. He had even introduced the boy to what he discovered to be his one true calling.

At the time Jiraiya had taken Naruto spelunking, he was fourteen, and the kid had fallen in love with the caves as soon as they were underground. He decided immediately that he would pursue this wonderful thing until it became his job one day.

The blond boy passed through high school as the class clown, his grades were fair but not great. In college he picked up the slack and worked for his degree and then on for his masters, he was a geologist with a specialization in speleology, the study of caves. Now he was out and he had gotten a job in Konoha with the national park service. He had moved halfway across the country to be there. He might have hesitated in taking this job before but Jiraiya had died almost two years ago now so there was nothing holding him back. The old man had been unfortunate enough to be driving under an overpass when the thing collapsed, crushing his car and others like it. It must have been a very painful death, Naruto tried not to think about it too much, it always depressed him. Fate could be so cruel sometimes. This was the reason why he felt that the country would build more solid infrastructure, but no, money went other places so the countries bridges and dams were in decay, just waiting to collapse and cause harm to more people. Stupid infrastructure and people not wanting to pay taxes.

Naruto had bought this new house after he had landed the job in Konoha and was confident that this was exactly what he wanted. Now that he was here he could understand why it was called the Village Hidden in the Leaves. The place was surrounded in old trees, sheltering it from the outside and much industrialized world. The trees might have been a fire hazard if not for the large amount of rain they received, always keeping things soggy and not especially flammable.

Naruto smiled as he walked back inside, he had a full day of boring unpacking to do before he could start working tomorrow. The blond slipped off his boots and passed back inside to make himself breakfast. It was nothing fancy, just some cereal. Now he wished that he hadn't gone outside, the dampness of his clothes was making him feel all gross. Oh well, at least now he smelled like nature. Petrichor, more exactly, the wonderful sent of rain.

He finished his breakfast quickly, changed his clothes, and started unpacking after feeding his toads, of course. He had kept the toads in honor of Jiraiya and because he thought they were awesome. Toads kicked butt after all. He had an intricate fish tank set up for them and his five fat toads lumbered around inside happily, or unhappily; it was impossible to know, them being toads and all. At least he liked to think that they were happy. Once he finished dumping crickets into the aquarium he watched the toads lazily hunt the chirping insects and have their meal. Then he set to work. So much to do, so much to do, and so little time.

Unpacking was such a dull task. It made one realize just how much useless shit they had. Trinkets, silverware, clothes... Etc. If only he had magical powers, then he could just wave a wand and put the clothes away. That would be pretty amazing.

The idea seemed very Harry potter. Harry Potter was the best though, so that was okay. There was probably some spell for putting clothes away. There always seemed to be a spell for things like that. How the heck did a spell get made in the first place? Was it the word that made the magic do what it was supposed to? Because then you could say anything in Latin and make it happen. Were spells like elements on the periodic table? Was there a set limit of spells to be discovered? And why Latin? Was magic invented my the Romans?

Magical Romans, that was a very interesting idea. Just imagining all those dramatic marble statues posing with wands in their hands was enough to make Naruto giggle a little bit. No, not giggle, he did not giggle. He was a man dammit. To help reassure himself Naruto leaned over the mirror he was carrying and made a manly face. Grrrr, he was so tough, that was a face that could take on the world. Or so he told himself. Men could be rather insecure about their masculinity sometimes. Personally, Naruto was content was his boyish face and decent body shape. They served their purpose.

Naruto lined the mirror up on the nail on the wall, carefully nudging it as he leaned over the wooden he had placed against the wall. This was a decorative mirror after all, designed to make the room look bigger or something like that. As he set the mirror into place the blond's hand slipped and the mirror slid to the side, tumbling off the nail and shattering on the hardwood floor.

Naruto stood there staring at the shattered glass for a moment. Welp, there was seven years of bad luck right there. A curse of a thousand cuts in the feet if he didn't go find his vacuum cleaner. Luckily for him, the glass hadn't managed to break his skin when it shattered nearby but it had gotten all over the floor. It took him nearly an hour to locate his stupid vacuum and by that time he had already stepped on two pieces of glass that he had to removed from his foot with tweezers, which he also had to find stored away. His bad luck was already starting, so it seemed. Hopefully, the luck would have no negative repercussions on his new job. Naruto was not one who actively believed in superstitions and bad omens but they made him uneasy. He would just have to suck up the broken glass, bandage up his foot, and hope for the best.

By five pm he had a majority of his stuff out in a place that seemed at least a little logical for the time being and he had just seen a car pull up the driveway at the house next door to his right, so he decided that he should introduce himself to one of his neighbors.

The geologist went out to the road to walk down their driveway, he thought about cutting through the woods to get over there but while it would be short it might be a little weird. He would feel a little weird about meeting someone who had just emerged from the woods surrounding his house. There was just something a little suspicious about someone you don't know emerging from the woods to the side if your house.

As he approached the house a dog started barking and continued its verbal assault until he had rung the doorbell. Moments later a man with sharp features and spiky brown hair answered the door, a large white dog at his heel.

Naruto smiled brightly. "Hey, I just moved in yesterday and I saw you drive in so I thought I should introduce myself." He stuck out his hand. "Naruto Uzumaki."

The man gave him a strange look for a fraction of a second before he returned the gesture. "Kiba Inuzaki, uh, wanna come in?" He jerked a thumb toward the interior of his house.

"Yeah, thanks." Naruto stepped inside behind Kiba. They moved to the dining room, it was simple but pleasant. They sat down in chairs facing each other, the dog laid down on the floor beside it's master.

"Want some tea or coffee or something?" Kiba offered although they had both just sat down.

Naruto shrugged, why not? "Coffee, I guess."

There was already a pot waiting, which Naruto assumed that Kiba had been making when he had arrived, and it was poured into two mugs as Naruto knelt down to pet the big white dog.

"Want anything in it?" Kiba asked.

"Nah, just black." Usually Naruto took his coffee with a bit of chocolate milk poured in but he didn't feel like asking for anything right now.

"Good man," Kiba smirked as he drank his own black coffee. Kiba handed him the coffee and he took a sip. "So, where did you move from?"

"I lived up near the Gama lake," he said thinking about the shimmering cloudy waters and diverse lake critters. He felt a pang of sadness but he brushed it aside for the moment. He was going to be living out his dream after all, there was no place for sadness now.

Kiba snorted, "Did you grow up chasing toads? I've never been up there but I hear that's all they do." That was true. There was an abundance of toads up by the lake, that was why Jiraiya had lived up there.

Naruto grinned, he had spent a lot of time chasing around toads in fact. He was an expert toad catcher after many years of experience. "Of course I did, no one can pass up a nice big toad. Toads make even better pets than dogs." He watched as the dog nuzzled it's head against Kiba's ankles.

Kiba leaned over and covered the dogs ears, "Don't listen to him, Akamaru, he's just a mean little toad boy, he doesn't know what he's talking about."

The blond laughed, "What kind of dog is that anyway?" It was large and fluffy and wild looking.

"A Great Pyrenees, the best breed of all time. No toad could ever compare." Kiba scratched at Akamaru's ear affectionately.

"I've never had a dog, dogs where I grew up went around eating the toads and dying a lot." He frowned, that had always been sad for him, he didn't like watching dogs die it was super depressing. "I do have some pet toads."

"Remind me never to go up there, I value this dog's life more than most humans." He looked like he meant it, but then, many humans valued the lives of dogs above those of people.

"Fair enough, the toads would probably appreciate it as well." They probably didn't appreciate being eaten by the dogs after all.

"So wait, you actually have pet toads?" Kiba laughed like the idea was ridiculous. Was it really that weird?

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, they sit around all day getting fat. They're all smug, like they've got it all figured out. I like putting a mirror by their aquarium to keep them humble, they don't seem to understand his small and ugly they are." Small but oversized, sometimes he fed them too many crickets so they ended up a little bit too fat and happy. Smug little bastards.

"Man, that's the life right there." Kiba sighed, "So, why did you move here if you love your precious toads so much?"

"I'm a geologist-" he started.

"Oh, that explains it." Kiba cut him off and rolled his eyes. "This place is always attracting your type." He gave Naruto a mock in glare and shaking his head.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Is that a good or bad thing?"

He shrugged, "Well, they never last long, so I guess it's not really a bad thing. More of a neutral really."

"Where do they go if they don't stay here?" Naruto asked, he just wanted to be sure that they weren't all being murdered or something like that. That wasn't something he wanted to deal with. If his options were to live out his dream while at risk of being murdered by some crazy person he would like to be told beforehand.

Kiba scratched his head. "Mostly they just move away, I guess the caves aren't as interesting as they sound."

Naruto frowned, "Geez, don't make me doubt my job now, I haven't even started yet!" He doubted that Kiba could appreciate the nature of the caves, given his general attitude toward them. Neither could the other geologists, apparently, if they all moved away.

"The tunnels might also be haunted," he snickered, taking a sip of his coffee.

"Right, because every creepy cave needs a creepy ghost story to go with it." Naruto rolled his eyes. Not that he didn't like the ghost stories, they just made things more interesting. It was just tiresome when people took them too seriously.

"Yeah, but seriously, beware, but I think Gaara might be the one that's really scaring them all off," Kiba snorted.

Naruto scoffed, he had met with the man for his job interview and, sure,  
he seemed a little uptight but not the type of scare people off... Well, maybe a little. "Why would the head of the geology department want to scare people off?" Naruto asked.

"Because he's an unfriendly bastard." Kiba huffed, crossing his arms.

"How do you know him?" Naruto was slightly surprised.

"I'm a park naturalist. I organize hikes and tours and projects and stuff. We sometimes have to work together. The guy's impossible. He needs to surgically remove that stick from his ass and learn to chill out."

"Well, I came a long way for this job so if we don't get along I'll have to make us get along... Or annoy him until he gives in to my every whim," the blond grinned evilly.

Kiba laughed, "I like the way you think. Do you wanna play Xbox?" He pointed to his Xbox.

"Sure." And they spent the next few hours playing GTA 5 and screaming at each other. Instead of making real food Kiba popped a ton of popcorn and they ate while they played.

When Naruto left later that night he felt that he'd made his first friend.

XxxX

The next morning Naruto strode confidently into the geology building, marched up to the head office and knocked on the door. He was let in and greeted by the sullen face of a mister Gaara Shakaku whose expression did not change as he walked into the room.

"Naruto Uzumaki," he stated, his eyes unwavering. He handed over a series of papers. "This is yours to do, there is an open desk for you out there." He nodded his head toward the door. Not much of a conversationalist it seemed.

Ignoring the short and to the point attitude of his new boss, Naruto took the papers with a smile too bright for this office like environment and headed out. There were five of them in this department: Rock Lee, whose name must have guided him to this kind if work through some twist of fate, Sai, who when Naruto asked for a full name he only offered a creepy smile that scared him away, and Hinata Hyuga, who smiled shyly at him, then there were himself, and Gaara.

They were all working on things that seemed way more interesting than what he was doing, he figured his boss must me hazing him so he got to work without complaint. He would keep this job if it was the last thing he ever did on this earth. So, he sucked it up and did a bunch of boring paperwork.

So maybe his first day wasn't the super amazing, mind blowing, fun fest he had imagined when he had first conceived the idea of working here, but it was a job after all. There was always a trade off with jobs. You have to do all the shitty stuff, then maybe later you could do something awesome. Maybe.

He could deal with that, just push through until things got awesome. Despite the boring paperwork, the day passed relatively quickly and Naruto soon found himself home once again. He didn't have much of an idea what people around here did so he decided that he would just continue to unpack his things, even though he really wanted to go outside.

That didn't last long. Almost as soon as he started unpacking the blond gave up and went outside to hike around in the woods behind his house. The day was overcast but warm, a breeze rustled the still budding leaves of the old trees about Naruto's head. When he was driving home he had seen dark clouds rolling in on the horizon but things seemed to be okay for the time being, he would just have to make sure not to stay out too long.

In the woods, he traveled along a deer path so as not to become tangled in the various thorny plants coming to life in the spring air. Spring was such an interesting season. A time of transition. After a long, cold winter it was always a relief to be able to see the ground again. After the final snow the grass was always ugly and dead but then the rains would come and they would regain their former rich coloring. Everyday there seemed to be more and more plants popping up to bathe in the sunlight.

Naruto smiled to himself as he walked down the path, making sure to remember the way he took. The woods were quieter than he would have expected, but then it was early spring, maybe all the little critters weren't quite out yet. As he neared a creak he could hear the chirping of spring peepers. Frogs weren't quite as awesome as toads but they were close, and along with the banjo like thumping of a bull frog, the amphibians played a wonderful choirs through the otherwise still forest.

He continued on past the creek and found his way into a small valley. Limestone cliffs rose up from the far side of the dip. It was very pretty, very natural. Sometimes it seemed a shame to have humans coming in and messing all this nature up but then again, Naruto did love his technology. Everyone was too hooked in new age technology that they couldn't see far enough past their phones to see that they were doing real harm. It was quite sad, but it was a gradual decline so it lost attention easily.

Sighing, Naruto turned at the cliff face and started back on his way home before the rain started. The sky was starting to swirl with dark clouds and he could hear the rumble of thunder somewhere off in the distance.

His trip back was made more swiftly but he managed to make it home before the skies started dumping water on him. The rain didn't last very long, it was there and then it was gone. The weather could be fickle like that sometimes.

Later that evening, while Naruto was feeding his toads the doorbell rang. He walked over and pulled it open to see a small woman with short pink hair holding a basket full of muffins. When the door came open there was a brief second where she had given him that same strange look Kiba had but then her expression jumped back to the friendly face she had before as if nothing had changed it. He wished that people would stop giving him that look, everyone did it  
and it made him feel weird. Was his face really that weird looking? It just looked like a normal face, honestly.

"Hello," she greeted warmly, "I'm your neighbor," she pointed toward her house to his left. "I thought I would bring you a housewarming present." Oh, what a friendly and neighborly thing to do.

Naruto graciously accepted the token of neighborhood, "Thanks, I'm Naruto Uzumaki, nice to meet you."

"Sakura Haruno, can I come in?" she replied.

"Sure," he stepped back to let her inside.

She cast a look around as she was led into the living room. For a second Naruto felt very conscious of the fact that there was a lot of stuff still packed up in boxes but he brushed the feeling aside. The first thing Naruto did was open the basket and start eating a muffin; it was amazing. "Want one?" he asked.

"I was the one who made them," she said like it somehow prevented her from eating them. Somehow it didn't seem right to offer her her own muffins. A weird social thing maybe.

"Doesn't mean you can't eat one. You only get one though, they're too good for me to give anymore up than that." Naruto warned her.

Sakura smiled a the paise and accepted the muffin. "So, where are you from?" she asked.

"Up near Gama lake, I'm a geologist so I moved down here for the caves," he said quickly. According to Kiba his story was not very original in this area. Damn other people for making him seem less cool.

She smiled in understanding, "So, you're going to go crawling through the caves then?"

The geologist grinned. "That's the hope. So, what do you do?" He would much rather get to know her, she was very pretty and he defiantly wanted to put 'the moves' on her.

"I'm a doctor, I work for the hospital in town. Sometimes I have to patch up geologists like you who slip and fall in the caves." She gave a sly smile.

Ooh, pretty and quick. Naruto thought that he might slip and fall on purpose just so she could patch him up but he refrained from saying that. "A doctor, eh? Ever get any really weird patients?"

Sakura groaned, "There are a lot of weird people out there." Everyone loved a good medical horror story.

"What's one weird thing that happened?" Naurto pressed excitedly.

She considered this for a second, "Once was doing a check up on an older patient and he literally started having a hard attack right there and while he was falling he grabbed my breast for support." She crossed her arms and looked away, an indignant expression on her face. "That wasn't really one of my weird patients, it just happened today and I'm pissed off about it," she grumbled.

"Did he live?" Naruto was trying to restrain his laughter for the purpose of seeming like a decent guy.

"Yeah, in he was a very good mood when he woke up. Too good a mood, I think. As if it's not hard enough to be a female doctor." She huffed.

"At least he was okay?" he said uncertainly. That was the main goal of being a doctor, right?

Her face softened a little bit, "Yeah, that's all that matters. For every weirdo confrontation there's that one patient you feel proud you save and that's why I became a doctor." There was always that little glimmer of hope.

"Wow, I feel so overwhelmed with inspirations right now I could just explode into a cloud of happiness," Naruto laughed.

Sakura made a face. "That would be pretty weird."

"Yeah, probably also dangerous to be inhaled too," Naruto imagined.

"Good thing I'm a doctor," she smirked.

"You're a doctor, not a meteorologist!" Naruto laughed loudly but Sakura gave him a confused look. "It's a Star Trek thing, because clouds and yeah..." he explained awkwardly.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you must be a nerd then."

"A tiny bit," Naruto said sheepishly.

Sakura shrugged. "The extent of my nerdyness extends only to my vigorous study of medicine for my job."

"That is pretty nerdy though," Naurto judged.

"Yeah..." she trailed off, "Well, I have to go make myself some dinner."

Naruto would offer to cook her dinner but he had, like, zero food in the house. "Alright then, it was nice meeting you," he grinned at her, opening the front door to let her out.

"You too," she chirped as she walked off toward house. She had walked through the woods and Naruto found that he actually didn't that mind as much as he thought he might.

XxxX

A/N: I've never written Naruto before, thought I'd give it a try. It just feels a little... Not right. I can't find the rhythm. I don't know, but I'll do it anyway. Hopefully it doesn't suck too badly, I promise it gets more interesting.

The setting is somewhere halfway between the real world and a made up place. But if I had to pick an area it was in I would say Washington. The cave system is like that of Mammoth cave or the Wind caves. Caves are awesome and you should go see one. Seriously.

Oh, the Parahypogean are threshold regions near a cave's mouth, extending to the last penetration of sunlight.

Gaara, mister sand man himself, seems to fit a job in geology.

I think the heart attack boob grab came from Parks and Recreation but I can't really remember. Oh well.

Literally listed my rock collection for Naruto's...

Thanks.


	2. Dr Worm

Some day somebody else besides me will  
Call me by my stage name, they will  
Call me dr worm.  
Good morning how are you, I'm dr worm  
I'm interested in things.  
I'm not a real doctor,  
But I am a real worm;  
I am an actual worm.  
I live like a worm.

-"Dr Worm" They Might Be Giants

XxxX

After two weeks Naruto was starting to settle in. At work all he had been doing was paperwork and graphing. He was just itching to get out into the field, but he knew he had to wait. This was his dream job and he didn't get there by being impatient. He got there by barely restraining his impatience, he was a pretty energetic guy after all, he couldn't be expected to sit in one place for too long.

He liked his colleagues well enough though. Lee was obnoxious and way too intense about everything even when it was nothing, but he was the go to guy for anything chemistry related. He mostly analyzed and recorded water and rock chemical samples. It may sound boring but if you asked him he would make it out to be literally the most exciting this on the surface of the planet. Apparently, he had been raised my a man equally as intense so it couldn't altogether be blamed on him just being weird in general, there were environmental factors to keep in mind as well. Frankly, Naruto wasn't sure if the man who raised the weirdo should be thanked for his service or beaten to death for the monster he had created.

Sai was the most unnerving one, he didn't seem to know how to act around people and was therefor quite tactless, but he knew how to work all of their software and was the expert in all things involving charts. It was very hard to tell if he was being serious at times. Naruto often wondered if he was a robot or some sort of alien trying to mimic a human but failing. Seriously, he was like a creature wearing a human suit, an erie smile sewn into the face to make him seem less threatening. Creepy. It would not surprise him if one day they all came in to work and found that Sai had been secretly murdering people and storing their bodies on the building grounds, then opened his arms to the sky to be taken back into the void of space by his true alien brethren. Well, on second thought, maybe he would be a little surprised by that, but who wouldn't be?

Naruto could never have a solid conversation with Hinata, every time he tried to talk to her he face turned bright red and she fidget with her hands until she ran way. She was their biologist, plant, animal, and everything in between. She seemed like a sweet girl, she just needed more confidence when it came to dealing with other people. Naurto could probably afford to lose some if his confidence so at one point he had considered offering her an injection of his confidence on the condition that she could invent a way for such a transfer of confidence to he possible. Then he realized how weird it would sound if they left his mouth and he thought better of it. Of all his new coworkers, she was probably the one he liked most as a person. She was smart and he could respect her.

Gaara coordinated anything and everything they did with other departments as well as doing a lot of the boring desk work. His facial expression never seemed to deviate from it's stone cold serious state. He worked hard and pushed the others to word hard for him. He was an effective boss, although rather distant always being away in his office or out doing something important, but maybe that was for the best.

Naruto was the rock formation and minerals guy, but he had been stuck with all this paperwork, so he hadn't seen much of that around. That was a real shame. He knew that Gaara was purposely giving him the boring work and was therefore determined that he would not storm into his office and demand field work. Although, he had considered in many, many times.

After what seemed like far, far too long Gaara finally approached him about some actual field work. He wanted Naruto to go spelunking down one of the more unexplored entrances in order to extend the map and to take some mineral samples. This was exactly what he had been waiting for; a chance to prove himself and gain his employer's trust. Gaara would, of course, be going with him to oversee his work. A little annoying but it was always best to go spelunking with a partner anyway. The last thing anyone wanted was to be trapped far below the earth's surface squished between two rocks or with two broken legs, or worse. A lot could go wrong with only one person.

When the designated day came to go out, the two of them got up and headed out very early that day, driving down to the entrance. They had to hike about fifteen minutes to get there in all of their safety gear. They had lighted hard hats, thick fleece jumpers for the drop in temperature they would experience along with the dampness. They wore gloves and carried a small amount of supplies along with an emergency communication device. Ah, safety measures. They were always nice in hindsight, but with normal sight they always seemed like a tedious waste of time. It was just that tendency to think that whatever happened, you, the main character of your life, would be completely fine.

The entrance itself was nothing special. It was an oval shaped opening about one foot by ten inches (thirty centimeters by twenty five), only just big enough to get a person through. Naruto felt a thrill as they approached it. A small, cool wind breathed out of the hole. The air pressure must be dropping, he thought. When the air pressure dropped, the higher pressure inside the cave came whistling out. It was more noticeable in caves with only a few small entrances like this one. If the air pressure was dropping maybe it was going to start raining again, it always seemed to be raining. That was kind of spring's thing. April showers bring May flowers, and Mayflowers bring pilgrims.

Fucking pilgrims. Pilgrims and Thanksgiving and depressing stories about the native Americans you don't tell little kids until after they've been blasted with the typical American patriotism because 'merica is da best. No depressing history there, not at all. But, hey, every country had its darker moments. Why do the natives always seem to get the short end of the stick? It was likely that Native Americans had been the first inside the caves, which did make a lot of sense, seeing as they were there first. Every so often in the tunnels someone would find a picture carved into the stone if the wall. The ones in this cave where still in fair condition, not too contaminated by grubby little human hands. Naruto knew that in some places where such old art existed in caves the marks had been almost completely rubbed away had that was very sad to think about.

Gaara did not wait for the blond to take in the glory that was this cave entrance, he just started to crawl into the cave head first. Naruto followed, the tunnel down was steep and narrow, the rock closed in all around him, leaving limited room to turn around if he had ever wanted to, which he did not. They reached a flat plane where the cavern opened up just enough to stand. Gaara gave him an approving nod as he crawled in behind him. They walked slowly through the dark expanse of tunnels as they echoed with eerily loud foot steps. Every time Naruto went spelunking he felt like he was inside the stomach of the earth, walking through it like some kind of bacteria or virus. He enjoyed the idea of being a little germ in mother nature's belly. He wasn't sure what that might mean metaphorically but he would rather not discuss it with a psychiatrist because the thought seemed potentially weird when picked apart. Probably something about wanting to be back in his mothers womb or something gross like that, especially because he had no mother currently. Just to clarity, that was not something that he wanted.

He imagined that being in a womb now it would just have to be his disembodied head that his mother gave birth to. She couldn't just give birth to a fully grown human male after all, that would be absurd. The amount of stretching the stomach and birth canal would be subjected to would just be too much. Giving birth to a full human head would still be horrifying and painful but not quite so impossible. Still... Pretty disturbing.

The cave was truly beautiful. Along the way they stacked rocks to mark their way as they drew out a new map, taking samples every now and then along the way. They were carful to touch as little of the cave surface as humanly possible. Despite their gloves they wore to protect the cave against the oils of human skin contamination the cave environment was delicate and as little impact they could put on it the better. They climbed through jagged rocks and around sharp bends. At one point they had to walk through an underground stream.

Naruto always liked underground streams, they were like the Earth's veins. The water trickled through the rock, carving new tunnels in the limestone. This stream was not particularly large, only about a foot across at the most. Naruto wished that he could turn himself into a tiny microorganism and float down that stream, to see where it would take him. Up to the surface or down down down into the ground.

Streams could get extremely dangerous when rain came around. Suddenly that little stream could become a gushing current and pull you down as you tried to cross it. Naruto had been spelunking once where they had to cross a heavy flowing stream after mistiming their little adventure. He had been a teenager on a tour group at the time. Everyone made it across fine, but it was a slightly terrifying experience all the same and it was never fun to be soaked while crawling through dirt.

Despite the slight trauma, Naruto could only remember once having a nightmare involving caves. He had been eighteen at the time and there were not obvious trigger like watching something scary before bed or anything, it was just a stupid nightmare but he still remembered it clearly enough.

He was in a cave and the cavern was large enough that he could stand without having to worry about hitting his head. He was looking at something on the wall of the cave when he felt this creeping fear come over him and he somehow knew there was something else there with him. It wasn't human and it wasn't animal, he wasn't sure what it was because he never saw it but he could feel it there. Immediately, he stopped whatever he had been doing and started to run away from the thing he could not see. Away from it's gnarled skin and reflective eyes. Away from it's gleaming teeth and lipless face. He was too afraid to look back, terrified of what he might see. He just kept running as the tunnel gradually began to get small and the thing started to gain on him. He was crawling on his stomach, through the cave when it finally caught him and started dragging him back at a speed that shouldn't have been possible. He had screamed but the sound was choked. Too afraid to open his eyes, his dream supplied an over head view on the thing eating him whole, though he couldn't focus on the creature. And then the dream had moved on to less traumatizing things.

It was actually one of the very few nightmares that the blond ever remembered having, he was blessed with fitful sleep most nights. He didn't let the dream get to him, obviously, or else he wouldn't be there crawling though this cave with his boss.

They squeezed through tiny pathways and through caverns of great size.

After about six hours they turned around and began the journey back. They only had a day's worth of supplies with them. They went through the whole path all over again. Naruto loved every second of it, this was what he lived for. It was dirty and uncomfortable at times but he loved it all the same. When they crawled out of the cave it was dark outside, although that was light compared to where they had just been.

They hiked back to their cars and before leaving Gaara turned to the new geologist. "You did well today, Uzumaki," he nodded.

Naruto grinned in reply, completely forgetting to tell him to call him Naruto and not by just his last name.

They soon parted ways and Naruto returned home happy and exhausted. That was the best way to return home, he felt very accomplished.

Gaara let him go on more field missions over the next few weeks, it was hard work but it was good, challenging, and Naruto felt he was starting to earn his boss's trust because the red head started letting him go out on his own. Life was good.

XxxX

Naruto sat in the office inspecting the new cave map Sai had drawn up when he noticed that one of the entrances had no mapping on it. There were only three natural entrances to the cave and one that had been mined out and was open to the public as a touring area. It wasn't as if he hadn't noticed it before but every time he had seen it he had forgotten to ask about it either because he was busy with something else or because he had a bad memory and just forgot. Now was his time to ask, he didn't have anything pressing to do right now. Thus, Naruto turned to Hinata, who was working on something on the computer.

"Hey, Hinata," he called to her.

She jolted at her name and her eyes quickly shot up to meet his, then drifted away shyly. She was so skittish. "Yes?" she asked quietly, biting her lip and fiddling with her sleeve.

"Why has this entrance never been mapped?" He pointed to the spot of interest.

"Ah, well that portion had been cut off due to a cave in, but we can't get to the entrance because-" she was cut off by Rock Lee.

"That entrance lies on the Uchiha land, so we can't touch it without permission and they never let us near it," he harrumphed.

Naruto glared at him, irritated that he had cut Hinata off, she was far less irritating that he was. "Who are the Uchihas?" he asked.

"A rich family who like to look down in us little folks. The only one left now is their son now, but we still can't get him to let us see it," Sai chipped in.

"Why not?" Why would anyone prevent exploration and knowledge? Unless they were an asshole, this guy was probably an asshole.

Sai shook his head, "They've always been secluded and cryptic, never came out unless they had to and never let people over. Not an especially friendly group."

Naruto scowled, "Can't the parks just make them for the sake of science and preservation or something."

Lee shook his head. "They donate a very generous amount to the national park service and pull strings at the top."

Naruto huffed in irritation. Of course they did, what was he expecting? What kind of people did that? "So, where is it? The entrance, I mean."

"Why, you going to go sneak into the cave and explore for yourself?" Sai chuckled.

"No, I'm going to convince the owner to let me," Naruto said in determination. He was going to get this guy to let him see it if it was the last thing he ever did, for science sake.

Lee laughed at that. "Good luck with that, Sasuke isn't the kind of guy who will let you push him around." Naruto assumed that he was only saying that because at one point he hand tried and failed to be let on the land. This guy must be tough to refuse Lee, that guy was crazy determined when it came to this stuff.

"That doesn't mean I can't try. I will explore those caves, believe it!" He slammed his fist on the table to show his resolve. Hinata jumped at the sudden noise.

Sai gave him the address of the Uchiha residence, it was actually just down the road from where Naruto lived but he had assumed there had been nothing out there before, probably because other than that place there was nothing else. After work Naruto headed out to meet this Sasuke Uchiha, he was expecting a no from him, but he still had to try. What kind of person would he be if he didn't at least put in an effort? He couldn't deal with this kind of thing, it wasn't something he could just let go.

When he pulled up the driveway he was expecting a big house but this house looked both big and old than huge and fancy. It looked like more of a series of connected houses all painted white, ivy growing up the sides and mossy slate roofing. It was located on the back edge of a hill, even more set back in the woods than Naruto was. He hastily parked his car and headed toward the door. It was just as old looking as the rest of the house, although there was an obviously newly installed doorbell beside it. He was sort if disappointed that he didn't have to use that old knocker that hung there. In the center of the knocker there was an image that Sai had said was the Uchiha family crest, although Naruto thought it looked more like a Pingpong paddled. He wondered if the Uchihas thought it was just as dumb as he did. Oh well, he pressed the doorbell and heard the sound echo through the house then nothing. For a moment he thought that no one would come but then he heard a lock click and the door slid halfway open.

Behind the door there was a tall man with long dark hair and reflective coal black eyes. When he opened the door his expression was hard and drawn. He was slightly taller than Naruto but they looked to be about the same age.

"Unless you're here to deliver something I suggest you leave," he said menacingly. He didn't wait for a reply, seeing as Naruto was not a delivery boy, and began to shut the door. Then he paused, his eyes stopping for a moment on Naruto's face. After a moments hesitation he reopened the door to it's previous halfway open state. "What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.

Naruto blinked, having expected the door to be slammed in his face. "I'm a geologist-"

"You want access to the cave. You must be new. So, I'll tell you what I've told all the others; no." His lips twitched up in a cold smile.

Naruto scowled. "I'm not expecting you to change your mind because of a new face, but I want to know why won't allow access to it? What harm could it possibly do?" asked Naruto in exasperation.

"I don't want a bunch if people crawling around under my house. Is that too much to ask?" he said simply.

"Well, can I at least see it? I promise I won't crawl into it." He tried not to whine but he only mostly succeeded.

Sasuke stared at him for a long time, his eyes narrowed and calculating. Naruto wondered what he could be thinking but he had no idea.

"What's your name?" he finally asked.

"Naruto Uzumaki."

"And I suppose you already know my name."

Naruto nodded, "Sasuke Uchiha."

"Well, Naruto Uzumaki, I suppose... letting you see the entrance couldn't possibly harm anything. Wait one moment." He shut the door leaving Naruto shocked, he hadn't really expected to get anywhere. This was fucking awesome.

Sasuke returned with boots on and stepped out onto the porch. He was very pale in the full light of the day, he looked like he didn't get out nearly enough sunlight. Milky white like a vampire, maybe that's why he didn't go outside. Naruto made sure to keep a close eye out for burning skin or sparkling under the sun but saw nothing. Eh, what good were vampires anyway? Nothing, that's what. They're a bunch of weird people leaches... Not that they actually existed, rather just in theory they were horribly annoying.

"So-" Naruto started as they walked down a path into the woods.

"Don't talk to me." He was cut off.

"You just want to walk in uncomfortable silence?" Naruto scoffed, "How far away is it anyway?"

"About ten minutes." he said simply.

"What-"

"I told you not to talk to me," Sasuke repeated.

"I can't help it, I have to fill the silence somehow or I'll explode," Naruto informed him.

"I don't care. If you explode then I won't have to show you the cave."

Naruto made a face at him. "Ugh, is this why you stay shut up in your house, because you're so bad with people?"

"Yes, it usually makes people leave me alone."

"Well, too bad for you I'm a talker and I want to talk to you, so deal with it."

"I will not deal with it, I will ignore you," he protested.

"That is a way of dealing with it," Naruto informed him pointedly.

Sasuke looked slightly irritated, "You should be more polite to the person who is going against years upon years of family history and showing you the cave entrance."

Naruto crossed his arms across his chest. "Maybe you should be more polite to me because my presence has inexplicably and momentarily changed you into a good person for showing me these caves."

Sasuke glanced at him warily. "I don't think I like being a good person."

"Don't say that, being a good person is great. So, why wouldn't your family let people see the cave?" He changed the subject.

Sasuke shrugged, "How should I know."

"What do you mean?"

He looked surprised for a moment like he was shocked that Naruto didn't know. "They all died when I was little."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Naruto mumbled. They had said that he was the last Uchiha. "My mom's dead, I never knew my dad. Tragic pasts, am I right?" He gave a slightly sad smile.

"Hn," Sasuke replied.

"That's not a real response to anything anything anyone asks; unless they're asking what should to show that I really don't care about anything anyone says? I was trying to sympathize with you, there's no need to be all 'I don't give a shit about anything you say' about it."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "I didn't realize that was an emotion I could portray."

"You've been portraying it since I got here, you're starting to hurt my feelings," the blond pouted.

"Well, then a good thing my general mood is 'I don't give a shit about anything you say' or I might feel bad."

"You should feel bad anyway, I'm a human being with possibly dead parents too. If anyone could sympathize I would be me," Naruto pointed out.

"I don't need to be sympathized with," Sasuke said with irritation.

"Well, my mom died in child birth, having me, and no one wanted to take care of me after that, so if you're anywhere on that range of tragic then I can understand."

"I'm not," Sasuke assured.

Naruto eyed him irritably. "Man, I bet your past is really tragic and I'll never understand the pain you feel, am I right?"

Sasuke shrugged.

"That's not something you can just shrug to, it was a serious question, bastard."

He shrugged again.

Naruto made an irritated sound, "Okay, I get it. You don't want to talk about it, I'll change the subject. What do you do for a living? Obviously, you already know what I do."

"If rather not disclose that information to a near stranger," Sasuke sniffed.

"What?! What the hell would I do with that information? How would I use your occupation against you?"

"I'd just rather not tell you what it is. If you so choose, I'm sure you could find out on your own."

"Maybe I will. And then I'll find a way to use it against you, just because you wouldn't tell me."

"Good luck with that."

"Oh, don't worry. I have all the luck in the world.

The entrance was slightly wider than the other one Naruto had gone into, he could still the air flowing lazily out. He kneeled next to it and gazed into the darkness. The slope downward seemed less steep than the other entrance had been. All he wanted to go was crawl inside and explore it's dark depths but he had promised that he would not do that, unfortunately.

He turned to his sullen faced guide. "Are you sure you won't let us crawl around in there?" he asked hopefully.

"No."

"I swear we won't mess anything up," the geologist promised.

"I don't like the idea of people crawling around under my house," he repeated stubbornly.

Naruto sighed, "And there's nothing that can change your mind?"

"No," Sasuke said plainly as he motioned for Naruto to stand and walk back with him.

The blond fought off the urge to jump into the hole and crawl away like a worm into the ground. That might be a little weird and also embarrassing.

"I can see you are a stubborn man," Naruto commented as they walked away from the cave mouth. "I can respect that, but if you could give in just this once I would be very grateful."

"No," Sasuke glared at him.

"Not even for this beautiful face?" Naruto gave a bright smile.

"Nope," Sasuke shook his head.

"Damn, and I really thought that would work. My face is resistible after all."

"I think you meant irresistible, but what you said was more correct."

"What did I say?" Naruto asked, confused.

"Resistible"

"Oops."

"It sounded like a Freudian slip to me."

"Yeah, well what did Freud know anyway? He was wrong about a bunch if weird stuff," Naruto huffed.

"True, but I believe that deep down you understood that I wasn't going to let you into the cave and you had already accepted it. Therefore there is no need for us still to be talking."

"I have not accepted your denial. I will get into those caves, even if I have to tunnel my way down like a mole."

"Through solid rock?"

"Shut up, I would have some heavy machinery with me and I would be fine."

"Great, a mole person living under my feet, that's just one more thing I have to worry about," Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Naruto felt rather proud that he had forced such an absurd sentence from him like that. It was rather rewarding.

They walked back to the house and Sasuke still tried refuse to humor him with any idle conversation but wasn't entirely successful. They stopped just in front of the house, Naruto turned to give some form of goodbye or maybe to yell at him a little bit for not letting him in the cave, he didn't know, but he was stopped when he noticed that Sasuke was giving him the same strange look he had before.

"What?" the blond asked, shifting uncomfortably. It was a different sort of look than he usually got, although he wasn't quite sure how.

"You may come back," the Uchiha finally said, his face held confidence but he words were hesitant, "I will allow you to do some sampling or surveys or whatever it is that you do as long as you don't go crawling around down into there. Don't bring anyone else either, I don't want people I don't know waltzing around on my property."

"Are you serious?" Naruto asked incredulously.

He nodded very seriously.

"When can I do the surveys?" he asked, beginning to get excited.

"I'm usually here, but I will give you my cell phone number, you will let me know before you pay me a visit. I will email your boss to tell him that you are allowed to come." That last statement made Naruto feel like a little kid being babysat but he was too excited to be upset by it.

"Here," Naruto handed over his cellphone while Sasuke added in his number. He was too shocked to form any sort it witty response to this situation.

Sasuke handed back the phone when he was done. Naruto grinned at him. "So, I guess my face is irresistible then?"

Sasuke gave him an annoyed look, muttered a short goodbye and slunk back into his home. Naruto stared after him for a moment but he then he shook his head slightly and walked back to his car. One very brief car ride later he was home, thinking about feeding his fat, little toads and Sasuke Uchiha. What a strange fucking day. Oh, well, operation view the cave was a success and operation infiltration looked like it would show promise.

XxxX

A/N: Saying Uchiha land sound like it's an Indian reservation or something. But the Uchiha sigil does look like a Pingpong paddle, am I right?

Hinata is the anime character I'm probably most like, minus the having a massive crush on someone. Being awkward isn't fun.

Tumblr: opens-up-4-nobody

Thanks.


	3. All My Own Stunts

Sorrow slow dances  
Around the edges of her eyes  
Taking no chances  
The last one out will win a prize

-"All My Own Stunts" Arctic Monkeys

XxxX

When Naruto pulled into his driveway both Sakura and Kiba were standing in his front yard, along with Akamaru, of course. He slammed the car door shut and greeted them.

"What are you both doing here?" he asked.

"I came over to ask if you wanted to play Xbox with me, then she showed up like two seconds before you got here." Kiba jabbed a finger at the pink haired woman.

"I saw Kiba standing in your yard not doing anything and so I thought I would ask what was up," Sakura said, "So, what were you doing to get home so late?"

It wasn't really late, it was only six forty and it wasn't even dark out yet. Usually, he was home by around six or earlier. So, technically he had gotten home slightly late.

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "Do either of you two know Sasuke Uchiha?" he asked. They obviously did judging by the reactions on their faces. Kiba looked deeply confused as to why he would be talking about the guy and Sakura's eyes had widened at the mention of his name. "So, is that a yes?" he asked.

"What does he have to do with anything you were doing?" Kiba asked.

"I went to ask him about the cave entrance on his property," Naruto shrugged.

"And you lived to tell the tale?!" he gasped. Sakura elbowed him in the side with a pointed look that Naruto didn't understand.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Sure Sasuke had been a little weird, but he didn't seem that bad. He just seemed a little socially awkward, also a bit of an asshole but he let Naruto get to the cave so that could be overlooked for now.

"The guy gives me the creeps. He probably strangles puppies or something," Kiba spat, "Or cuts the eyes out of girls in magazines, then hangs them up in his room like a shrine."

Sakura glared, "He's been through a lot, that's all. You shouldn't say things like that."

"So what? As long as he can't hear me I'm fine, although I wouldn't be surprised if he could somehow sense me talking about him." He looked around suspiciously, as if he expected Sasuke to have some sort of sinister presence hanging around them. And that sinister presence would obviously be very interest in Kiba talking shit about Sasuke, because that made a lot of sense.

"Why? What's his deal?" Naruto asked, Sasuke hadn't exactly been forthcoming in his dialogue, so it was only natural to be curious about the guy.

"When he was little he watched his parents die," Sakura said quietly, a downcast look on her face.

Naruto felt his stomach drop at that. Having dead parents was bad enough, but watching them die was a whole different playing field of fucked up. Now he felt like an asshole for talking about dead parents, shit. "What happened to them?"

"His brother murdered them, everyone but Sasuke." Kiba said bluntly.

"Why?" Naruto asked in dismay. Why the fuck would someone do something like that?

"No one knows," Kiba said,"They never caught him. He probably just lost it, that's what everyone says but know one really knows what really happened because Sasuke refused to talk about it afterward. People say that his brother crawled into that cave on their property to hide, but the police searched for him and didn't find anything." Kiba's face was serious, but his tone was something like a story teller's. It was a rather fantastic tale.

Naruto couldn't help, but feel unsettled by that bit of information. Although he highly doubted that Sasuke's brother could have crawled into the cave to escape without being caught he felt a prickle on the back of his neck knowing that he had been down in the caves. The caves weren't connected, but it was still a little freaky.

"Sasuke was a always a little weird, he was always sort of... brooding," Kiba continued, "I always felt like he was going to stab someone if they tried messing with him, you know? He has that weird calm anger sort if feel."

Naruto understood what he was saying, but didn't voice his agreement because Sakura started to talk.

"I remind you that he had to grow up being raised by that snake, Orochimaru," Sakura added, as if it were some kind of excuse.

"Who?" Naruto asked, he hated being the new guy. It left him way out of the loop.

"He was this creep that took care of Sasuke when his parents died, there was always something weird about him. He always kind of reminded me of Lord Voldemort," Sakura shuddered.

"He died a pretty amazing death though," Kiba laughed.

"How?" Naruto wondered.

"He was literally struck by fucking lightening," Kiba said in slight wonder, his reaction intensified for effective story telling.

"Holy shit." The odds of that must be insane. "Where was he standing?"

Kiba made a face. "Some field behind the Uchiha house, fuck knows what he was doing out there during a thunderstorm. Probably trying to raise the dead or something, they guy was totally crazy, so I wouldn't be surprised."

"The point is that he was a bad influence on the poor mailable mind of little Sasuke." Sakura said sadly.

"Yep, it made him into a bad person," Kiba confirmed with a smile.

"He is't that bad, he is a good person, just troubled!" Sakura said in irritation.

Kiba laughed, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, pinkie here had a crush on Sasuke in high school. She and Ino followed him around all the time. They would have been the first he turned on."

Sakura's face turned bright red as she punched him in the head. "Shut up, you."

Kiba rubbed his head sulkily. "All I'm saying is that he, like the rest of his creepy family, is weird," he turned from Sakura to Naruto. "People used to say their family did lots of weird stuff. They came with the people who founded this town and they never left, even when people wanted them to."

"Why would people want them to leave?" Naurto asked.

"Because they were creepy back then too and they got blamed for every weird thing that happened in the town. Pretty soon they shut themselves away," Kiba explained in a creepy voice.

Naruto raised an eyebrow, he wasn't one to judged someone based in his creepy family. Everyone deserved a chance. "He did seen a little weird, but he gave me permission to do some surveys so he can't be all bad, right?"

"Woah, back up, he's actually going to let you near the cave?" Kiba asked incredulously.

"I was already near the cave. He let me see it and said I could come back to survey it." Naruto smiled broadly.

Kiba's jaw dropped, "He must have thought you were a beautiful princess or something, because as long as I've been here the Uchihas have never let anyone near that place."

Naruto made a face and shrugged, "He didn't even put up that much of a fight over it."

"I don't believe you, I'm going to need proof of that." Kiba crossed his arms over his chest.

Naruto pulled out his phone, "I got his number." He offered holding up the display of the little series of numbers.

Kiba squinted at the number. "Correction, he must be totally in love with you. That is the only explanation."

Naruto glared at him. "So, what does he even do? As a job I mean. He wouldn't answer any of my questions."

Kiba shrugged so Sakura filled him in. "He's a chemist, but he works privately doing research."

"How does he get paid?" The blond wondered.

"Not until he publishes his findings,  
he has enough money that he wouldn't have to do anything for the rest of his life if he wanted to, but he just shuts himself up him his house," She sighed sadly, thinking about his beautiful face so deprived if human contact and sunlight.

"I don't want to know what he does in there," Kiba said, "Whatever it is it's probably fucked up. Tears the faces off of cats or something."

Sakura huffed, but didn't say anything more. They talked for a while longer then Sakura invited them over for dinner, which they both quick to accept.

The next day Naruto told his boss about his arrangement with the Uchiha. When he walked in everyone was in the office eating donuts that Sai had brought in. Naruto wouldn't trust those donuts. Sai had a face that immediately wonder if they had any pepper spray available to spray at him if he came too close.

"Guys," he announced, grabbing everyone's attention, "You'll never guess what happened."

"What is it, Naruto?" asked Lee.

"He got permission to survey the cave entrance on the Uchiha property," said Gaara blankly.

Everyone looked shocked, some more dramatically than others.

Sai only showed a polite smile, "How exactly did you accomplish that? There wouldn't have been any dick sucking, would there?"

Naruto grimaced, "No, what the hell is wrong with you!? I didn't really do anything, he just decided to let me do it."

Lee was crying, "You have succeeded where I have failed, I will try harder next time, Gai sensi!" he shouted. Naruto didn't know who Gai was, but if Lee knew him than he must be a weirdo.

Hinata was the only one who looked genuinely proud of him, although he was too busy arranging plans with Gaara to notice. She opened her mouth to say something of praise, but the words caught in her throat the way they always did. She sighed after a moment and walked back to her desk to watch the blond talk animatedly with Gaara.

Gaara thought that it would be best to start the surveying tomorrow before the last Uchiha changed his mind and Naruto agreed with him hole heartily. He was so pumped up he felt like he could punch through a wall. He thought about trying that idea but then thought better of it.

Naruto texted Sasuke that he wanted to go start his surveying and to request that he start at nine. The message he got back read: "Let me know before you go out."

Naruto found it very difficult to sleep that night due to his mounting anticipation.

XxxX

In the morning he dressed quickly, and drove over to the large house at more or less nine. He wasn't really a schedules kind of guy. He rang the doorbell, as he assumed that he was intended to, and waited until the door swung back to show the pale, dark haired man. Again, he only opened his door about halfway, peaking out from around the side like a creep.

"I'm here." Naruto said with a blindingly bright smile.

"I can see that." He stepped out of the doorway and the door slid shut behind him. He began walking toward the woods.

"Are you going to come with me?" Naruto asked, slightly surprised.

"Yes," Sasuke nodded.

"Why?"

"Because I want to make sure you don't do anything strange."

"What do you think I would do? It's just a cave and I want to study it. The worst thing I could do would be to go into it and crawl around."

"Still, I will be coming with you." His tone left no room for argument.

They made the walk quickly, Naruto was eager to start the work. As he looked at the hole he couldn't help a, but let a small fear creep up his spine. The information about the Uchiha family was unnerving, although he hardly believed that the murder had escaped into the caves. There would be no way to get food down there. Not unless he ate tiny bugs and dirt, and drank microbe and bacteria filled cave water. None the less he shivered as he looked into the darkness.

While he set up his equipment Sasuke sat on a log nearby, writing into a notebook and glancing up every so often. Naruto didn't really mind, he was too focused on what he was doing. It was really a bother that he couldn't go into the cave, but he could do enough here.

He measured the air current going in and out of the entrance, he broke off part of the stone for analysis, he took accurate measurement of the entrance size and used a digital radar to get a detailed scale of the dimensions for a map.

He hadn't yet completed all of his tasks when Sasuke suddenly sat up, startling him so much he almost fell into the cave. "It's almost time for lunch," he said, flipping his notebook shut.

"Uh, do you want me to leave?" Naruto asked.

The man shook his head. "Come with me."

Naruto didn't like the way this guy was always ordering him around like this. "Instead of ordering me around you could say 'hey, Naruto, maybe you could take a break for a minute and come back to the house with me?'"

"I could," Sasuke replied, although he didn't seem impressed by that and he started walking away. Naruto sighed, but stood and followed him all the same. He was slightly surprised when he walked up to the porch and held open the door for him. After a moments hesitation he stepped through the doorway into the house, mindful of Kiba's warning that the guy was a creep.

He was in a small entryway that had a small coat rack and a larger area for shoes that was nearly empty.

"Take your shoes off here," Sasuke told him as he slipped out of his shoes himself.

Naruto did as told then followed Sasuke through the house, past a large living room and into a large kitchen. The whole place appeared to be completely spotless and it looked shockingly modern when compared to the outside of his house. It was a little weird. It looked a little too clean, the way houses do I'm magazines.

As Sasuke bustled over to the fridge Naruto climbed up into a bar stool and watched him. Almost as soon as he sat down he got a text from Kiba.

Kiba 12:04 PM

You still alive?

Naruto scowled at the message.

Naruto 12:04 PM

Yeah, he's going to feed me.

Kiba 12:05 PM

Watch out he might try to poison you and experiment on your dead body. And by experiment I mean have sex with.

Naruto 12:05 PM

I'll keep that in mind.

"Do you like tomato soup?" Sasuke asked quite suddenly, startling Naruto into dropping his phone, as Sasuke pulled a soup pan from his fridge.

"Uh, yeah," Naruto said as he retrieved his phone, he was not a picky eater whatsoever.

"Grilled cheese?" he asked.

"Yep," Naruto popped the 'p' sound a little too much. He couldn't help it, this was so awkward. He tried to ignore his discomfort as he watched Sasuke get out a little grill and the supplies to make the sandwiches.

As he put in the first sandwich he couldn't stand the silence anymore. "I'll be out of your hair soon," he said quite out of the blue.

Sasuke looked up with a raised eyebrow.

"I can't really do much if you won't let me go down into the actual cave," Naruto explained.

Sasuke returned his eyes to the grill, pulling out the grilled cheese and putting in another one. He set that one on a plate with a bowl of soup he had warmed up. He handed it to Naruto, who took it carefully.

"I might be inclined to let you into the cave," the dark haired man said thoughtfully.

Naruto's heart almost skipped a beat. "And what would it take to let you let me down there?"

He shrugged, "I suppose that you must have heard some things about me from other people in the time you were gone." The Uchiha cast a look over at Naruto to gage his reaction for truthfulness.

Naruto nodded, there was no point in lying. "I talked to Sakura and Kiba, they're my neighbors and they said they knew you."

Sasuke hummed an affirmative response. "Yes, we went to the same high school. As it would happen, unlike with them, I don't find your presence completely disagreeable and it has been a long time since I've been around another person to whom I do not feel anything above contempt." God, the man spoke like a Vulcan.

"So what, in return for letting me in the cave you want me to hang out with you?" The guy wasn't selling himself very well if he was, and what a weird fucking request.

"That is essentially what I am saying, yes. I have been told that I am very socially awkward." That was for sure.

Naruto paused for a moment to think. "Okay," he finally said, "I can't find a way to disagree with that, but if I have to hang out with you then you can't just be all weird and quiet the whole time. Engage in conversation every once in a while. Answer questions, tell anecdotes, I don't care, just talk."

Sasuke nodded, "I will try."

"And I'm probably going to need to go down there with another person for safety reasons," he warned.

Sasuke looked uncomfortable at that, like he thought one person going down there was bad enough, but he gave a stiff nod all the same saying, "If you must."

"I must." Naruto said lightly as he dipped his grilled cheese into the soup and took a bite. It was amazing. "This soup is awesome," Naruto said in wonder as he began wolfing it down. His reaction seemed to amuse Sasuke, who had just finished with his grilled cheese and went to sit in a chair at the table.

"Why are you sitting over there?" Naruto asked, "Come sit next to me, I don't bite."

"I always sit here." Sasuke said as if that explained everything.

Naruto made a face. "So? That doesn't mean you can't sit over here now."

"Yes, it does," Sasuke said, before taking a bite.

"What, you have OCD or something?"

"I just like to do things a certain way." That sounded like about as much of a confession as he would get.

Naruto sighed and moved his food to sit across from him. "I feel like we should probably work on your communications skills. This will be your fist lesson in conversation; what is your favorite color?"

"Favorite color?" Sasuke looked unimpressed. "What point would there be in having a favorite?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, "There isn't really a point, it's just a dumb question, so answer it." He got the feeling Sasuke might just be trying to be irritating.

"Hn, blue, I suppose. And I guess it would be polite to ask yours as well. So, what is your favorite color?"

"Orange," Naruto grinned, gesturing down to his garish orange shirt.

Sasuke wrinkled his nose. "Of course, I should have guessed."

Naruto grinned wildly, "It's a loud color and it suits my boisterous, vibrant personality."

"That it does," Sasuke scoffed.

"Hopefully my orange-ness will infect your blue-ness in the time we spend together." He made a weird melding motion with his hands, intertwining his fingers.

"Then we would both become horrible brown colors," Sasuke pointed out."

"Brown is the color of friendship and cooperation." Naruto proclaimed, but Sasuke gave him a dubious look.

"I would have expected a rainbow to symbolize friendship and cooperation," Sasuke pointed out.

Naruto considered this deeply. "Rainbow is a lot of colors, mush them all together and you get the color of friendship, which is brown... Actually, I think if you have perfect primary colors it's black, but black symbolizes evil most of the time so we have to go with brown."

"Brown is the color of mud, is that really the color you want to symbolize friendship?"

"Yeah, and everyone likes mud!"

"No, you like mud because you go crawling though it like a little worm. The rest of us have higher standards of cleanliness." Sasuke said, turning up his nose.

"Just wait until I infect you with my orange," Naruto threatened, snickering.

"That sounds suspiciously like a threat, should I be worried?"

"You should most defiantly be worried because I'm going to turn you into a fun person," Naruto grinned.

"Well, I wish you luck in that endeavor," the Uchiha rolled his eyes.

Naruto reconsidered, "Well, maybe not a fun person, but one who doesn't make small children want to run in fear."

"Is that what my presence does to kids?"

"Well, I haven't seen it personally but that's what I expect would happen, I mean you kind of give off murder vibes you know?" Shit, maybe he shouldn't have said that. Was it insensitive to bring up murder vibes when Sasuke's brother had murdered his parents? It probably was.

"Good, that tends to make people not bother me," Sasuke huffed, apparently not offended.

"Well, don't go thinking you'll scare me off, because you do not scare me."

"Maybe I should, I am the prince of darkness after all."

"Yeah, okay satan. I would have never imagined the devil himself having lunch with me, and eating tomato soup of all things."

"It reminds me of the blood of the millions of people I've destroyed."

"Ew."

"I want to change my answer," Sasuke decided, "My favorite color is black."

"Do you want to have your soul symbolize evil?"

"No, I just like that black is the absence of light, it feels very... symbolic somehow." Ugh, the emo feels.

"Ugh," Naruto groaned, "You're being too serious. This is no time for seriousness, only silliness here." He jabbed his finger down on the table top

Sasuke looked like a crow with ruffled feathers. "I'm not good a being... Silly."

"Well, I am a silly master, so I will gladly teach you my craft, but for now I actually have a semi serious question."

"After what you just said? I though this wasn't the time for seriousness."

"I know, I realized it as the words were coming out of my mouth and I regret everything, but not enough to redirect the conversation," the blond explained, "So, I wanted to ask what you study. Sakura said that you're a chemist."

Sasuke shook his head, dipping his grilled cheese into his soup. "Not exactly, I'm actually a biologist,  
but my work has to do a lot with chemistry because it's biotechnology."

Naruto scoffed, "So, I'm guessing whatever you're doing is overly complicated and over my head."

Sasuke smiled, "Possibly, although as a geologist I'd imagine you know a thing or two about chemistry."

"Yeah, rock chemistry. That's the earth's body, not an actual flesh body," Naruto wrinkled his nose.

"They are two very different things."

"Can you explain it to me like how you would explain it to a child?"

"I'm trying to synthesize life," he said simply.

Naruto wrinkled his nose, "Sounds controversial."

He nodded, "Which is why I don't work with other people. When I complete my work I will publish my papers and people can deal with the fallout." he smirked as if he liked the idea of upsetting millions of people. It must be fun to troll the scientific community.

"Now we aren't taking about like Frankenstein monster style life, are we?" Naruto said nervously, if so then maybe Kiba had a basis for his previously irrational fears. Maybe Sasuke was murdering people to use their corpses to make a monster.

Sasuke almost laughed, "No, I'm talking about very basic life that I can synthase from base elements."

"That's a little less scary," Naruto sighed, "What kind of life do you want to make?"

"Oh, I don't know. A friendly pet, an animal that grows transplant organs, a human destroying monster I can use to take over the world. The possibilities are endless."

"Kiba was right, you are a mad scientist."

Sasuke let out a hair raising evil laugh.

Naruto punched him in the shoulder, cutting the laugh short. "Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's creepy. You just went from an emotionless weirdo to making an ear piercing noise."

"Do I frighten you, Naruto Uzumaki?" he teased.

Naruto groaned, "I think you're better at being silly than I first thought, that or you don't know how to interact with other humans."

The dark haired scientist shrugged. "Probably both."

"You should probably work on that."

"Maybe, but I don't usually have to deal with people so it's not that big a deal."

"That was then, this is now. I'm going to make you deal with people whether you like it or not."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "I guess I should prepare myself then."

"Yes, you should, because I'm going to rock your little introverted life, no longer will people be freaked out by you."

"I feel like you're focusing in how weird I am, it's making me feel self conscious," Sasuke said lightly.

"I'm thinking maybe if I focus on it you'll change, if I focused on how normal you are then you wouldn't be likely to do anything."

"We've known each other such a short time and already you're trying to change me," Sasuke sighed dramatically, "At least I still have my pretty face."

He wasn't lying, he did have a very pretty face, "I think you're fishing for complements, I'm not going to tell you how pretty you are. Why did you use the word pretty anyway? It's not an especially manly word."

"My handsome face then, you wish you had a face as pretty as mind."

"And here we are back on the pretty word. I'm not going to say that you're pretty."

"But you can't deny that I am physically pleasing, yes?" Sasuke smirked.

"Okay, I am uncomfortable with the turn this conversation has taken," Naruto laughed. It was true though, Sasuke was very pretty.

"You're just afraid of the power that my cheekbones hold."

"Yeah, okay, Benedict Cumberbatch, get you're weird alien face away from me," Naruto said making a face.

"Not until you tell me how handsome I am."

"Ugh, fine, you have a very nice face, happy?"

"Eh, I could be happier but that will suffice for now."

"Great, there's more ego stroking to come. You're not going to try to seduce me, are you?"

"No, I would never dream of it," Sasuke said in a way that was not especially reassuring.

"Wow, now I feel like you only want me here because of my ruggedly handsome looks."

"Yeah, that's deniably it, although ruggedly handsome wasn't quite the word I was thinking."

"And what word were you thinking?" Naurto asked wearily.

"Agreeable."

"I was hoping for virile," Naruto pouted.

"I don't know, you have the boyishly handsome look going for you."

"And you're the dark and mysterious type. Together we would be an unstoppable force of lady killers." That sounded a little too much like a murder thing. Why did it always have to come back to murder?"

"Look out ladies, an unbreakable union has been made."

"Are we forever bound together by the handsomeness of our faces?"

"Something like that, although I would have said something a little more eloquent."

"Nah, I like my words better. It's like we're stitched together by our faces with the power of bro-ship."

"Those words are certainly something, that's for sure."

"You're just jealous at how creative I am."

"Yep, that is so totally my problem with those words you just said."

Naruto giggled, uh, laughed like a man, and they were quiet for a moment before Naruto spoke up again. "Have you ever been down into the cave?" he asked curiously. If he had grown up so close to a cave he defiantly would have snuck down there. Then again Sasuke didn't exactly seen like the type to roll around in the dirt.

There was a pause in the conversation where the air seemed to hang over them heavily, "When I was younger." Sasuke said, although his mood had taken a sudden dark turn.

Naruto got the feeling that he probably shouldn't ask, so he didn't, if only to avoid making Sasuke change his mind about letting him into the caves. He cursed himself for bringing up such an awkward thing after they were having such a riveting conversation about... whatever nonsense they were talking about.

"Sorry," he apologized, although he was unsure that he should say anything at all.

"Don't worry about it," Sasuke waved a had dismissively.

"I am worried about it though, I just piledrived our conversation to a grinding halt."

"Well, if you want to get the conversation to tap out, I suggest putting it into a choke hold."

"Do people tap out in wrestling? I thought that they got pined for a certain amount of time."

"I don't know, I've never watched anyone wrestle," Sasuke shrugged.

"Me either, tv wresting makes me think of bull riders and actual wresting is so awkward to watch," Naruto made a face, "You should have scene the pin for wresting that went on my school's varsity jacket, it looked rather homoerotic."

"I'm sure that made all the wrestlers very happy."

"Oh, yeah, but they were kind if all dicks anyway, so it was okay."

"I never did sports in high school," Sasuke sighed, "Too much being around people."

"I did cross country, I was actually pretty freaking good if I do say so myself."

"Did you have the tiny little running shorts on your uniform?"

"Yep," Naruto grinned, "they were very small and they made us look like pasty legged spider people."

"Gross."

"Very gross, but I rocked that look."

"Yeah, I'm sure you did," Sasuke snorted. Naruto was just happy that the awkwardness had been dispelled.

XxxX

A/N: I'm already regretting posting this without being done with the whole story =_= all I want to do is write One Piece, but no, I felt like shaking it up a little.

Thanks.


	4. Undisclosed Desires

I want to reconcile the violence in your heart

I want to recognize your beauty is not just a mask,  
I want to exorcise the demons from your past,

I want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

-"Undisclosed Desires" Muse

XxxX

Naruto was once again led out to the cave were he finished up his job with Sasuke watching him intently, although it didn't seem quite so awkward now and they talked from time to time.

Naruto left the house a few hours later feeling somewhat accomplished. He now had the go to bring in someone and go into the cave, who knew what they would find down there.

High in spirits he went home and had dinner. After that, Kiba texted him asking if he wanted to come play xbox, so he went over there.

"So, how was mister creepy?" Kiba asked, "You're still alive, so that must be a good sign."

Naruto grinned, "Yeah, I got him to let me in. We get to explore the cave!"

Kiba looked shocked, "You must have some intense magical powers, because I've never seen that stubborn asshole give in to anyone, there must me a catch. He can't just be doing it out of the kindness of his heart."

"Well, we did make a deal," he rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

Kiba let out an exacerbated sigh, "Natuto, you idiot, you've signed your soul to the devil. It's sexual favors, isn't it? You shouldn't have to whore yourself out like this, Naruto, you're better than that!" Kiba cried.

Naruto tried to kick him but missed, "What? No! Nothing like that. You don't even know that I agreed to, don't pretend you do."

"Whatever it was can't be good."

"All I have to do is hang out with him," the blond shrugged.

Kiba made a gagging sound, "Seriously? That sounds like the worst think ever. I remember him being an arrogant jerk."

"He doesn't seem that bad, he did feed me today. If he keeps doing that he might find himself a friend," his mouth watered, remembering the soup and grilled cheese.

Kiba rolled his eyes, "Whatever, I'm just saying that it's a pretty weird request. He defiantly has some ulterior motive, if he pulls a move on you don't be afraid to punch him. Or do, he's probably a vampire or something."

"Nah, he was outside the while I was there," Naruto scoffed.

Kiba made a creepy face, "Was he watching you?"

"He was writing stuff in a note book, I think he thought I might try climbing into the cave."

"I bet when you go down there you'll find his brother had been living down there, chewing on bats or something like that." Bats didn't seem like they would be very nice to eat.

Naruto shuddered. "I hope not. I don't think that would be pleasant for anyone."

"Just remember that while your crawling though those dark enclosed caverns," the burnet snickered.

"Shut up, asshole, you can't scare me."

"I know, if I could then you would be avoiding the Uchiha guy altogether."

"Why do you hate him so much?" It didn't really seem like hatred, more general unease, but hatred was the best word for it.

"I just get a weird feeling from him," Kiba grumbled, "Akamaru doesn't like him either. Dogs are always right about people, haven't you ever seen a horror movie."

"I just think you're being unfair."

"Whatever, don't come crying to me when it turns out that he's stalking you and stealing underwear out of your drawers while you're asleep. Or when he tries to make a skin mask out of your face."

"Shut up, that's my potential friend you're talking about."

"Right, didn't mean to insult your future boyfriend."

Naruto kicked him in the side, this time landing the hit, and proceeded to beat him up. He deserved it.

The next day, Naruto Uzumaki stomped into the geology office with confidence.

"Guess what, you guys!" he exclaimed.

"What is it, Naruto?" asked Sai, glancing up from his computer.

"I got permission to go spelunking in Sasuke's cave," he grinned proudly.

Sai smiled, "Is that a double entendre?"

"No!" Naruto stamped his foot. "I mean we can survey the cave, you creep."

Sai only laughed as Lee started shouting about something that drowned out whatever Hinata was trying to say.

"Is this true?" Gaara asked from the doorway to his office.

"Yep," Naruto confirmed, "We can set up a date whenever." He grinned.

"How did you manage that?" The red haired man asked.

Naruto shrugged, "I'm not really sure, it just kind of happened and I wasn't about to question it."

Gaara raised an eyebrow, but he also apparently decided not to question it. He just counted himself lucky that Naruto had been hired.

XxxX

A few days later he and Gaara went out to the Uchiha residence to explore the cave. Sasuke met them when they arrived and took them to the entrance, lacking the slightly less cold edge he had when he had dealt with Naruto before. He didn't seem to like people much.

"Follow me," the raven haired man instructed.

"You don't have to come with us, Sasuke," Naruto assured, "I know where to go.

Sasuke just shook his head, "I will take you there," his tone left no room for argument. Naruto had a feeling this was one of those certain ways he had to live his life.

As they walked Naruto tried to start up conversation, but neither of his companions apparently felt the need to indulge him. One awkward walk later and they stood at the cave entrance for a moment admiring it. Sasuke was glowering, he watched with an uncomfortable look on his face as Gaara started into the mouth of the cave. He didn't like this at all, Naruto could tell but he didn't say anything, only watched.

The two of them weren't going to be surveying today, they were just going to see if they could judge about how long the tunnels ran through this portion of the cavern, then they could decided a time frame for the surveying. With one last glance at Sasuke's unhappy face, Naruto followed Gaara into the earth.

The path downward was easier than the other opening, it was larger and easier to maneuver, although they still had to crawl down it. When they were quite far down, the path opened up into a larger cavern, it was only about the size of a small room. It had two paths that they could follow. They chose the right first, it looked wider and they could hear water down the other way. This path went straight for a long time before it started to fork off.

They noticed that at for every split in the path there was a marker in white chalk pointing an arrow down one of the ways. They followed it every time, although Naruto found it a little unsettling, thinking about the lost murderer who had lived in the house above them. He consoled himself in thinking that Sasuke had said that he had been into the cave when he was younger and maybe he had been the one to make those marks.

About half an hour down the path they came to a very big cavern. It was about the size of a small gym, but that wasn't the most interesting thing about it. As they shined around their lights they noticed that there was stuff on the floor, and not the sort of stuff one would usually find in a cave like this. Naruto knelt down to inspect. There was what looked like a tv on the ground, without thinking he flicked it on. He was momentarily blinded by the sudden light. Floodlight, right, he should have noticed that. Once the small floodlight was on, it lit up a big corner of the cavern.

In the light many more things were uncovered. Gaara and Naruto went around turning on all seven of the floodlights in the cavern, making it appear quite bright. The floor was scattered with kids toys. It looked like they had once been packed up in a box, but now they had been overturned and lay all around, abandoned and looking as if they had not been touched in years.

There were G.I. Joes, playmobil people, an assortment of sports balls, nerf guns, light sabers, trucks... Etc. Someone had spent a lot of time bringing all of this here. The walls were drawn all of over in chalk, there was a sponge and a bucket that must have been used if they wanted to erase something, there was a stream flowing on the far left side of the cavern they could have used.

Currently, the wall seemed to display a crude cityscape. All of the shorter buildings had wobbly edges like that a child would make. The taller ones were neater and had more detail. It was obvious who had done this because the artwork had been signed. On the back wall there were two houses drawn, one very much better than the other. The nice one had a sign drawn next to it that said "Itachi" in neat lettering. The other had a similar sign that said "Sasuke" although the words ran over the sides of the sign the way little kids write.

Naruto felt his hair stand on end and a shiver went down his spine. He assumed that Itachi must have been Sasuke's older brother, the crazy one. Those two must have spent hours playing down here before Itachi had killed their parents. Naruto didn't like to think about that, there was something strange about standing in the spot where a murder had been. It unnerved him and it also made him feel very sad. This stuff must have been down there ever since Itachi had lost it. Maybe that was why Sasuke hated this place so much, it seemed like they must have spent a lot of time playing down there close to his brother. Connecting the place he had played as a child with the place his brother had, according to rumor, evaded the police couldn't be pleasant.

Gaara looked just as surprised as he was, gaping slightly around the room.

"Uh, should we?" Naruto lifted a camera to signal his intent.

"Ah, yes, yes we should," his boss nodded. That seemed to snap both of them out of their daze.

They stayed in the room for a while, inspecting the damage that the kids had done to the cave walls and taking a few pictures. The place was creepy. The path had ended there and once they had seen their fill and taken their pictures they turned off the lights and headed back in the darkness. As soon as the lights were flicked off Naruto had a vivid image of something grabbing him from behind and dragging him back into the creepy room flash before his brain. He took a deep breath, now was not the time to be a sissy. Pajama Sam had taught him that there was no need to be afraid of the dark, so he pressed on without a word, but the creepy feeling never left him.

They went back along the path, taking each direction they had passed on the way there. Down one of these paths they found the other side of the cave in that connected the cave to the main system, at least in the location they knew of, although it was blocked in. They went down another long path for awhile, but it was starting to get late and Sasuke had forbade them from staying down there for too long, so they turned back.

They came up at around five thirty in the evening, Sasuke was still sitting there on a log. Naruto wasn't sure if he had been there the whole time or not, but he was there now. Knowing him he probably had been there all along. Wordlessly, he took them back to the house. Gaara parted soon after that, but Sasuke told Naruto that the blond was going to stay for dinner. Naruto wasn't about to pass up an offer for free food, so he did not object.

"Was it just as thrilling as you expected?" asked Sasuke as he stirred a pot of spaghetti.

Naruto hesitated, "It wasn't quite what I was expecting." he said.

"The caves or what you found in them?" he asked with a knowing smirk.

"I was not expecting to find a little kid fort down there. It's not exactly a safe place for kids to play."

"I used to play down there with my brother." he said quietly, "I'm sure you have heard about him."

"A bit," Naruto grimaced.

"We got along quite well up until a year before he, well, you know." He gave a slightly twisted smile.

"I can imagine why you wouldn't want to look at it now," Naruto shook his head.

"Yes, it brings up old memories I'd rather forget," Sasuke sighed, "but I made my peace with them a long time ago, I think it's time that I moved past it."

Naruto nodded, he didn't really want to talk about this much, it was too depressing, so he switched topics in the most awkward manner possible. "So, what's your favorite tv show," he blurted out.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "I don't watch tv."

"No, you have to watch it sometimes."

"Nope, I never watch it."

"Never ever? Not even Netflix?"

"I don't have Netflix."

"You are missing out, sir. Okay, so, if you had to pick a favorite tv show ever what would it be?"

He thought for a moment, "I liked the X-Files," he finally said.

Naruto nodded, "You would probably like Supernatural then, it's like a suckier X-Files, but with a bunch if bible bullshit instead of alien bullshit."

"Hn, that doesn't sound very good. I quite liked the alien bullshit."

"Me too, that why I don't like Supernatural with all my heart," Naruto sighed, "What would you do if you were abducted by aliens?"

"That depends on the type of alien they were," Sasuke shrugged.

"Unfriendly ones."

"Well, if they were unfriendly I don't think they would give me any options to do anything."

"That's true, they wouldn't let you escape."

"But I would anyway because I'm a ninja."

"Psh, whatever. I could out ninja you anyway."

"You would be the most obnoxious, terrible ninja in all of existence."

"I would be awesome," Naruto grinned, taking a huge bite of food. Everything Sasuke ever made was amazing. He had to have some sort of super secret magical ingredient in order to make his dishes so good. It was the only explanation.

Visiting Sasuke became a pattern of exploring and then having dinner at his house over the next month or so. All of his colleges came over with him at least once, each analyzing a different aspect of the cave's nature. There was a lot of information to be gathered and it was hard to work sometimes with Sasuke being inflexible about how they could do things. Naruto could tell that he was trying to ease back on them, but it apparently wasn't something that came naturally to him. The effort was appreciated though, although Naruto seemed to be the only one appreciating it, everyone else he brought with him seemed annoyed.

The dinners were very much something he always looked forward to after a day of analyzing. Sasuke was an amazing cook, Naruto was convinced that he had been a five star chef in a past life. The geologist could continue eating his food forever and die happily, although hopefully he could continue living in order to eat more.

One night when Naruto was being led inside for dinner when he decided that it was time that Sasuke came over to his house instead. When Sasuke tried leading him inside Naruto stopped him by grabbing his arm. Sasuke started slightly at the touch and turned to see what Naruto wanted.

"Let's go to my place, I'll cook for you tonight," he grinned.

Sasuke hesitated at first, but he soon conceded to letting Naruto drive him over. Sasuke seemed to feel uncomfortable outside of his home. Home was a familiar place to hide and outside was sometimes hard to face. Naruto could tell but he did his best to maintain his cool and calm exterior.

"Don't expect anything fancy," Naruto warned, "We can't all be super rich, money bags."

Next to Sasuke's house, Naruto's was simple and a little messy, but looked presentable enough not to be embarrassing. Sasuke wandered around inside it like it was a very strange place, while Naruto made ramen, his all time favorite food. Maybe it wasn't fancy, but Sasuke could deal with non-fancy for once in his life.

"Why the hell do you have so much ramen?" Sasuke asked, as he was going through Naruto's cabinets and shaking his head at the lack of decent foods. There was in place of any and all decent food, an ungodly supply of ramen noodles.

"It's like my favorite food, shut up. I'm allowed to have some quirks too you know," Naruto pouted.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, "Are you insinuating that I am quirky?"

"I am, it's not bad when your not being annoying about it," he rolled his eyes.

"I can't find the logic in your statement, but I'd rather not argue with you and focus on the fact that you have an entire cabinet full of this stuff." He held up a handful of packets as evidence.

"I thought I told you to shut up, you bastard."

"You didn't buy this all at one time, did you?" Sasuke wondered, he imagined Naruto pushing a whole cart full of ramen packs through a store. People would think that he was preparing for some kind of apocalypse, they or he was going to take a ramen bath. Sasuke wasn't sure which idea was crazier, or more likely for Naruto to actually do.

The blond laughed, "Nah, I just buy them when I see that I'm low."

"How could you ever be low!?"

"I eat a lot of ramen, okay? Don't judge me." He shoved a bowl of noodles into Sasuke's hands. "Here, eat it and stop bothering me."

They sat down at Naruto's table and started eating, or rather Naruto started eating. Sasuke on the other hand was staring at his fork with an odd expression on his face.

"What?" Naruto asked when it became obvious that Sasuke wasn't going to start eating.

"This fork is too big," Sasuke said in a tight voice.

Naruto's brow furrowed, "How can it be too big? It's just a normal sized fork."

"It's too big," Sasuke insisted, setting it down on the table and glaring at his bowl of food.

Naruto sighed and grabbed the offending fork before it could do anymore damage. He swept into the kitchen, his socked feet sliding elegantly on the hardwood floor, he put the fork into his silverware drawer and picked out another, slightly smaller one. He went to turn around, but Sasuke was literally right behind him. He let out a yelp and slammed the drawer closed.

"Holy fuck, I didn't hear you move. Don't do that! I almost stabbed you with this thing," he held up the fork, which Sasuke scrutinized carefully. He snatched it out of Naruto's hand, pushed him aside and reopened the drawer. After a moment he pulled out another style of fork that had a thin square end rather than a round one. Naruto wasn't sure when he had acquired all of these fork variations, they just seemed to randomly show up. With this new fork in hand, Sasuke returned happily to the table and began to eat.

Naruto glared after him, "You're such a weirdo."

Sasuke shrugged, picking at his ramen lazily. He didn't seem to appreciate his food much. "It's just the way things have to be."

"No, you're just compulsive," Naruto objected.

"So, things have to be this way."

After eating Sasuke was going to leave, but Naruto made him stay to watch at least one episode of Supernatural. So, he stayed longer.

Halfway through the doorbell went off and Naruto quickly got up to answer. In the doorway stood a smiling Sakura.

"Hey, Sakura, what's up?" he asked pleasantly, he was just glad that it wasn't Kiba. There was no telling what might happen if it had been.

"I was just wondering if you had any eggs, I'm trying to make cookies and I need two more eggs," she said apologetically.

"Yeah, sure thing. Come on in and I'll get them for you," he stepped back to let her in, as he glanced back he saw Sasuke's head peaking out from behind the chair he was sitting in. "Hey, Sasuke, come over here and make conversation while if find eggs," he commanded, Sasuke needed to be more social anyway. Sakura's head snapped over into the direction Naruto had called to and her eyes widened at the sight of him sitting there.

Sasuke let out a long sigh as he stood and walked over to the two.

"I know you both know each other, so why don't you catch up or something, I'll only be gone about five seconds, that will be enough time right?"

"Just get going, idiot," Sasuke grumbled, his expression blank but on the verge of unhappiness.

"Got it," he chirped as he went off to get the eggs. Opening the fridge, he took the eggs from the container and put them in a plastic bag, that would make them easy to carry. but it was best to carry them delicately for fear of cracks. Eggs in a plastic bag, he returned to find Sasuke looking uncomfortable as Sasuke was babbling about something that Naruto couldn't immediately recognize, her face slightly red.

She stopped short when she saw Naruto. "Ah, thank you so much! I'll give you a cookie tomorrow." She promised as Naruto cheered. "Well, I'm off. It was nice catching up with you, Sasuke, even if it was only for a minute," she said quickly and darted out the door. She was gone before Naruto could say goodbye.

The blond turned to Sasuke with a raised eyebrow, "What was that?"

"I believe that girl once harbored a crush on me," he said darkly.

"Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?"

"Because I find it annoying."

Naruto made a face, "You shouldn't say that, Sakura's a wonderful person."

Sasuke just replied with a, "Hn." And they went back to the tv show.

When the episode was done Sasuke was staring at the tv, trying to figure out how he felt. "I don't think I liked it," he finally said.

"Whaaaaaat," Naruto was very disappointed.

"I didn't hate it, but it's nothing compared to the X-Files."

"You're just biased, if you hadn't already watched that show you would like this one better."

"Maybe, but I don't care, this show feels too... I don't know." He couldn't quite put it into words.

"But just wait until you get to the later seasons, angels and demons and god and Castiel, the worlds most adorable angel."

Sasuke was now very confused, "That makes me like it less, I don't like watching this kind of bullshit."

"Whatever," Naruto huffed, "Your taste in tv shows just sucks." He looked down at the time on his phone. It was late. "I guess I should probably sent you home," he sighed, "I imagine that you've spent enough time interacting with other humans for one day."

Sasuke nodded, "I'll just walk home then." He stood to go but Naruto stopped him.

"Woah, what the fuck do you think you're doing? It's super dark out there, you'll get lost or attacked by a bear or something."

Sasuke shook his head, "I grew up here, I could walk the way with my eyes closed, besides it's not that long a walk."

"Yeah, it is, and I'm not going to let you go out there on your own all unprotected," Naruto protested.

Sasuke just shook his head dismissively, "I'll be fine, I'm an Uchiha, I live in that shadows."

Naruto grimaced, "That's really creepy, I hope you know that."

Sasuke have him a half smile, "I know." He stepped forward and placed his hands on either of Naruto's shoulders.

The blond raised an eyebrow in question, "What the hell are you-"

"Thank you, Naruto, for a wonderful night," he said, a sharp smile on his face and a glimmer in his dark unreadable eyes.

"Sure," Naruto managed as he felt the hair on the back of his neck raise and his shoulders tingle. And then he was gone, he walked promptly out the door and into the darkness without another word. Naruto was left standing in his living room staring after him with a look on his face somewhere between confusion and alarm. What a fucking weirdo.

There after they went over to Naruto's house from time to time. Naruto enjoyed time spent with Sasuke, he could be very frustrating sometimes, but he could also be funny. Sure he was a little awkward and weird, but he didn't really understand Kiba's dislike of the guy. The more time they spent together the more Naurto liked him. Maybe that was the problem, people hadn't spent enough time with Sasuke. It was that or the fact that he didn't like most people, so he was an ass to them. The latter option seemed more likely.

Naruto was sitting at Sasuke's table one say after just coming back from the cave, they were both waiting for the lasagna Sasuke made to finish cooking. "Hey," Naruto interjected, "Can I see your lab?"

Sasuke blinked, he had never given Naruto a full tour of his house and therefore the blond had never been in his lab. "I guess so." He stepped out of the kitchen and started down the hall toward a door they led down into the basement. He opened the old, unfriendly looking thing and turned on the bright fluorescent lights of the room below, illuminating the whole area. It was all very neat looking, there were lots of complex looking machines, some of them hummed and some did not, and a lot of cases filled with marked chemicals. There were also a lot shelves full of books and a laptop closed on a table.

"Here it is." Sasuke remarked dully, "It's not especially exciting."

"It looks like the lab we had in college," Naruto laughed.

"This is better than my college lab, although sometimes I still have to go out to get things done so it's not perfect but it's nice."

"Ah the things that money can do," Naruto sighed, spending a few seconds to admire it. "Do you get a lot done in a day?"

"Yes," he said curtly.

"Even when you're sitting outside, waiting for us to get out of the cave?"

"Even then."

"Why do you do that?"

"I just do," Sasuke shook his head.

"Sometimes you are ridiculous," Naruto heaved a sigh, "Anyway, you should give me the full tour." Naruto suggested, it was still about fifteen minutes before dinner would be done anyway.

Sasuke nodded and lead up from the basement and pointed to the room across the hall. "That was my parents room." He said opening the door to shed some light on the empty space. It looked like no one had been there in some time, but it was dusted so Sasuke must go in and out to clean it.

They walked into the living room and Sasuke pointed down another hall next to the stairs. "That's where my caretaker used to stay," he said with distain, his lip curling up.

"Sakura mentioned him being odd," Naruto said cautiously.

"He was what he was," Sasuke said shortly, apparently not wanting to discuss it, and then started up the stairs. Naruto was close behind him. At the top of the stairs there was a guest bedroom that was absolutely huge. Down one hall there was an extra room that Sasuke said he used to play in as a child, but it was no longer used anymore. At the end of that hall there was another door. "That was Itachi's room," Sasuke said sullenly, he didn't go in there and he kept the door locked. Some things were best kept locked away where no one could see them.

Down the other hall was Sasuke's room. When the raven haired man opened that door Naruto rushed in. The room was very bland. There were a few bookshelves, a desk, and a bed but not much else. Naruto flopped down onto the bed looking irritated.

"This room is so boring," he said, intentionally messing up the covers on Sasuke's carefully made bed.

"It suits it's purpose," Sasuke said, glaring at the annoying blond as he made his mess.

"But that's no fun, it has no personality."

"You have no personality."

"Now you're just being stupid."

"You're being stupid."

Naruto sighed, staring up at the ceiling, "Don't you ever get lonely living in a big house like this alone?"

"Not often," Sasuke said, sitting on a portion of the bed not occupied by Naruto. "I've never had much need for company."

"What's this then?" Naruto asked, poking Sasuke in the cheek.

Sasuke gave him a hard to read look. "An exception," he breathed.

Naruto imagined that he must have made a very strange face at those words, he had not been expecting them. "What do you mean?"

"You are different," Sasuke said with that same hard to read expression.

"Most people say it like it's a bad thing."

"They just don't see the same way I do..." he trailed at the end and they were just staring at each other. The eye contact was stung out in an intense sort of way. It made Naruto feel like he was underwater being crushed by an unbelievable pressure.

Then they distantly heard the timer for the oven going off and the spell was broken. They headed downstairs and retrieved the lasagna, sitting down for an awesome dinner.

XxxX

A/N: I can't help but feel like this whole plot is a big double entendre: Naruto tried to get Sasuke to let him into his cave. I didn't mean for it to sound like that but...

Ugh, I'm so busy with school now. My life has become all chemistry :p

Thanks.


	5. Chapter 5

Days and weeks began to tick by and Naruto felt more and more at home, with the community and with Sasuke. He finally seemed to have things going his way. But, like it always seemed to go, there was one thing that took away from the happiness if being accepted. He had started having nightmares. It wasn't like he hadn't had nightmares before, but it was still a bother. Usually, he didn't remember what he had dreamed of, but when he did remember it was often something about being chased through the caves by some unknown monster. That wasn't to be altogether unexpected either, the events surrounding Sasuke's brother were ever present in the back of his mind. Whatever, he was managing and that was all that mattered. He wasn't about to let something like this ruin his uplifted prosperity.

Sasuke was a big part of that prosperity, he did provide his main study of materials after all. Plus, he offered his good friendship, something that was much appreciated, although something heavy lingered in the background of their friendship. It moved through the shadows like a sneaking animal, but neither of them felt compelled to poke at it, so it stayed where it was.

Whenever they were at Naruto's, the geologist had always maintained a hope that Kiba would never for any reason come over because the dog-man always voiced such hatred toward Sasuke. They were successful in avoiding him for about a month, until on one fateful day, Kiba showed up just as Naruto turned on the tv. Supernatural had become the thing to watch whenever they went to Naruto's, despite Sasuke's original objection. It was a good show, dammit.

At the ring of the doorbell Naruto strode to answer it. The blond opened the door to see his dog loving fried standing there, a shit eating grin on his face.

Naruto narrowed his eyes, "What do you want?" He had a good idea of what Kiba could be doing there but left it to him to explain himself.

Kiba's grin spread wider, "What's with all the suspicion?" he asked, "I'm just here to ask if you wanted to play Xbox with me."

"Really?" Naruto pressed, suspecting that in actuality, Kiba knew Sasuke was over and he wanted to see what was up.

As the burnet nodded, innocently Naruto cautiously opened the door to let Kiba inside. So long as the dog behaved he would be allowed in the house.

"Aw, you guys are watching Supernatural?" Kiba whined as he waltzed in and saw Sasuke sitting in the living room, Dean Winchester's face frozen very unattractively on the screen as he shoveled food into his mouth.

"Yeah, you can watch with us if you want," Naruto said, the 'if you behave' went unsaid. Sasuke just watched with those dark eyes of his, betraying nothing. Kiba met his gaze momentarily and Naruto could imagine his hackles raising. There was a long moment of silence before Kiba turned back to Naruto.

"Nah, I'll pass. I have some scheduling stuff I need to catch up on," he mumbled, his former mischievous demeanor completely changed.

Naruto tilted his head, confused at this sudden change, "But I thought you came over to ask if I wanted to play video games? Something you could have just texted me for by the way," the geologist pointed out, unimpressed.

"Fine, I've been discovered. I just wanted to make sure that you and the vampire king over there were keeping it PG." He placed a heavy hand on Naruto's shoulder. "I just don't want you to get all your blood sucked out. Don't fall victim to a teenage girl's dream."

"Are you calling Sasuke a teenage girl's dream?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"No, I meant a vampire."

"Are teenage girls still into vampires?"

"I hope not. Werewolves are were its at. I'd make a great werewolf."

Naruto's eyebrow twitched, "Just get out if here," he said knocking the hand aside and shoving Kiba toward the exit.

Kiba laughed and slipped out the door, having done no harm.

Naruto returned to his seat next to Sasuke in a huff, "Ignore him, he's an idiot," Naruto explained, slouching back in the chair.

"He doesn't like me." Sasuke said although he sounded amused instead of upset.

"He thinks you're creepy," Naruto sighed. The visit had been abrupt, whatever Kiba had planned to do in coming over had been dispelled when he actually caught sight of Sasuke. That was probably for the best, honestly, but it was a little strange.

Sasuke nodded as if it were perfectly fine, "That is to be expected, my family has a rather dark history."

"I don't think you're that creepy most of the time," Naruto tried to console him unnecessarily.

Sasuke scrutinized him, "That's not very reassuring."

"Well, I didn't want to lie to you."

"Thanks for your honestly."

"You are very welcome," he let out an exhausted sigh.

"Tired?" Sasuke asked, giving him a sideways look.

"Yeah," the blond yawned, "I just haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."

"Insomnia?" Sasuke guessed, now watching him intently.

"No, nightmares," Naruto shook his head.

"Do you remember what they were about?" Sasuke asked curiously.

"Some of them. They're mostly about me being chased through the cave," he rubbed at his eyes, trying to banish the sleep.

"Not an unreasonable fear."

"I'm just glad I'm only afraid at night, while I'm sleeping, not during the day. That would make things very inconvenient for my job," he laughed lazily.

"I can go home now if you like," Sasuke offered, "I wouldn't want to stay up on my account."

"Nah, I'll be fine," he said, switching on Netflix again.

Despite his efforts to stay awake, the blond fell asleep at some point and woke later into the night to find himself alone in his living room. He was disoriented at first, but he concluded that Sasuke must have left after he fell asleep, although not before turning off the tv and washing the left over dishes it seemed. Naruto smiled, Sasuke was just weird like that.

XxxX

One day in late summer, Naruto had gone down into the cave by himself for only a few hours to do a bit of surveying. Job done, he came up to see Sasuke sitting in the same place he usually did but drenched in rain and shivering. The temperature had dropped into the low sixtes, not exactly what they were used to at that time of year.

"What the hell are you doing?" Naruto exclaimed as he crawled out of he cave.

"I was waiting," Sasuke said as he stood and gestured that they should get moving out of the rain.

"You shouldn't have sat out in the rain like that, you're going to get sick," Naruto complained.

"I'll be fine," Sasuke promised as they moved through the woods.

Along the way to Sasuke's house, the blond noticed something strange half hidden in the grass. It looked like a piece of sponge cake with red filling. He stopped to take a look at the strange object. It looked like a bleeding white thing.

"What the fuck is that?" Naruto asked, pointing at the weird object.

Sasuke stopped and looked down down at the thing, "Bloody spider eyes," he said distantly.

"What?" Naruto asked in confusion.

Sasuke shook his head, "Hydnellum peckii, the bleeding tooth fungus, as it is commonly known."

Naruto made a face, "Then why did you say bloody spider eyes?"

"That's what my brother used to call them, he thought that they looked like spider eyes. He told me never to do anything bad while I was out in the woods because the bloody eyes would see me and whisper things behind my back," Sasuke shrugged, half distant from the memory.

"And you did say that you got along with your brother, right?" Naruto asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, I think it was just one of those things that older kids tell younger kids to freak them out. It did used to freak me out, that's for sure," he looked pensively at the little mushroom.

"Did you have nightmares of being chased by mushrooms?"

"No," he said a little too defensively, glaring when Naurto laughed at him.

"It's okay to be afraid," Naruto said, giving him a pat on the back.

Sasuke cringed back from the contact, "I was not afraid."

"Sure, sure," Naruto shook his head, "I believe you."

"Your tone suggests that you do not."

"Well, then my tone is lying to you."

They walked up the front steps of the house. Sasuke kicked off his shoes and put them out to dry before stepping inside. He was still shivering and dripping wet. Naruto gave him a sideways look.

"You should go take a shower and warm yourself up," he suggested, "I can go if you-"

"No," Sasuke stopped him, "Stay here, I'll be back."

"Fine, hurry up then."

Naruto watched him climb the stairs and walk down the hall, out of sight. He looked around, not really sure of what to do with himself now. He decided that he would take a little nap on the couch, he was feeling rather tired after all. He still wasn't getting very good sleep at night due to his nightmares. Sasuke would hopefully wake him up, then again maybe not. So, Naruto kicked back on the couch and settled in for a little cat nap.

He had another bad dream that he did not remember but it unsettled him none the less. As far as he could tell, it wasn't any more horrible than his usual ones, but it still startled him awake. He couldn't force himself back to sleep after that so he watched the rain falling against the plants outside, trying not to think about how tired his eyes were. Time blurred until Sasuke returned still looking cold, but he was in much better shape than before. He took a seat at the end of the couch, nudging aside Naruto's feet.

Feeling slightly giddy from the lack of sleep, the blond shifted and wrapped his arms around Sasuke's middle and smiled.

"Feed me," he laughed into the clean fabric of Sasuke's shirt. He gave a little glance upward and saw that Sasuke's face was amused, which was a releif because he usually didn't like to be touched.

"You'll have to let me up first," he said, patting Naruto's shoulder.

"Dude, no way," Naruto all but giggled.

Sasuke sighed and ran and and through the soft blond hair with an unexpected tenderness. That caused Naruto to falter, but soon felt a surreal calm wash over him. They stayed that way until Naruto fell back to sleep. He was shaken awake by Sasuke, who had dinner waiting.

It passed quickly and Naruto found himself home again, laying in bed and thinking about the ways Sasuke's hands felt in his hair as he tried to sleep. Such casual intimate touching was becoming more commonplace, oddly so. It was strange, to be sure, but at the same time is was nice.

XxxX

When winter began it became too cold to go exploring in the cave with their equipment. Although, the geology department was upset about the loss of new material they had other things to do and they had mapped a good portion of the cave. Sai had drawn up a detailed diagram of the area they had explored and it was Naruto's duty to invite Sasuke in to have it presented to him, thus a text was sent his way to call upon his attention.

Sasuke showed up promptly at four, which was the assigned time of his arrival. He stood slightly awkwardly in the doorway, Hinata was the first to spot him, her desk being nearest to the door, so she nudged Sai and pointed toward the pale man lingering in the doorway like a vampire.

"Ah," Sai said upon seeing Sasuke, he turned toward the back and shouted, "Naruto, mister Uchiha is here!"

The blond came scrambling around the corner then stopped when he came into view. "Did that seem too eager?" he asked nervously.

"Yes, but no one can blame you, I am unbelievably handsome," Sasuke drawled.

"Shut up, you bastard!" Naruto barked, "I'm just excited about this map, Sai has been hiding it from us!"

"I wanted it to be a surprise," Sai said innocently.

"We are all waiting on the edges of our seats," Gaara droned from across the room.

"Very well," Sai said, pulling some papers out of a folder." He held up the first paper for everyone. "This is an overall map," it looked like a twisty expanse of random, colorful squiggles to separate the depth. Where before there had been nothing, there was now another twisted branch breaking off from the cave in a separate, but connected area. "These are the new tunnels," he held up a map focusing on the new areas, different areas marked on it to describe something interesting found in each room or tunnel. "and this is the view from the side," this one went down and out, showing the underside of the cave from a horizontal vantage point.

Naruto was practically glowing as he poured over the maps with his colleagues. Sasuke wasn't looking at the maps, he was staring at the idiot blond and he did this for as long as he could get away with. No one appeared to notice, they were all too wrapped up in their own excitement over the map.

"I am acutely impressed," Sasuke finally said, "You haven't made me regret opening up the cave to you and I thank you for that." The comment was directed toward Gaara as the head of the department, but it applied to the whole team; mostly to Naruto.

Gaara stuck out his hand, "We are glad of that as well. You have made our year sufficiently more interesting. Will you allow us to return in the spring?"

Sasuke shook the hand firmly, "Yes, I would not object to that."

His answer made the office light up with happiness and really they all had Naruto to thank.

XxxX

It was probably one of the last semi warm days of the year and the last excursion into the cave until the spring. Naruto and Gaara were going on a two day journey through the tunnels as a final hurrah.

They set off very early in the morning, Sasuke saw them off looking more alert at this time than Naurto could ever hope to be, but then he had been feeling a little under the weather recently anyway. The blond hoped that Sasuke wouldn't sit at the entrance for all of the time they were down there, but it seemed like something he might do. He did being a backpack with him after all.

As they slid down to the first divide they took the left, the plan was to start mapping out this area come spring and they wanted to know what they were in for. They had gone short distances down this path before and it seemed to be longer than the right side, but now they would hopefully be able to determine that for sure

The time passed hiking and crawling through the tunnel. It was cold and dirty, as well as being a lot of hard work. Most of this side of the tunnel consisted of low wide paths rather than more open ones like on the right. That must have been why Sasuke and Itachi played down that other side, instead of this one. Although, every so often there would be a chalk marking on the wall, something that Sasuke had told them was Itachi's way of marking his farthest point when he was by himself. He must have spent a lot of time on his own because they had been at it for nearly six hours and they still saw marks every so often.

Naurto still found that a little creepy, but he pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on enjoying the exploration. His dreams kept coming forth in his mind, but dreams were different from reality, dreams couldn't hurt him.

The two stopped to eat in a larger cavern and to take a break but then they resumed again.

The next stop they made was after twelve hours of travel and was to sleep. It was obviously not the first time Naurto had spent the night in a cave like this and it was never very comfortable when one couldn't take much in the way of supplies, but they made the best of what they had. Gaara set an alarm for six hours and they settled down for sleep.

Usually, Naruto was able to blissfully drift off, safely enclosed in the stone womb, but here he felt uneasy. Maybe it was the little smily face they found drawn in chalk on the wall of this cavern, an innocent enough picture, but alarming when it was known that it was created by a future murder. If not that, then something was setting the blond on edge. He had difficulty sleeping, even more so than usual, and when he finally did sleep his rest was uneasy, he tossed and turned all night, although luckily he didn't seem to have any nightmares. When the alarm went off Naruto was gripped by a panic so suddenly that he couldn't breathe, but after a moment when Gaara turned on a light, he had gathered his surroundings again. He laughed shakily at himself, had some food, and they pressed on.

After four hours of travel, they came upon an opening that came up through the floor of a large cavern. Gaara and Naruto hoisted themselves up and had a look around. The cave was long and rectangular, about fifty feet in length and twenty across. Naruto was studying the stalag tight formations when Gaara nudged him and pointed to the end of the cavern.

There in the wall there was a symbol traced in white chalk. It appeared to be a circle with a three pointed pinwheel inside of it. Seeing the thing made Naruto's hair stand on end, but the two approached it cautiously none the less.

The closer they got the more nervous Naruto felt. They symbol stared down at him like a giant eye, he was so focused on it that he nearly fell over the uneven stone floor. Before he could take another step, Gaara held out a hand to stop him. Naurto turned to him in confusion, but when he saw the other man staring at the floor, that is where he also turned his gaze and his breath caught in his throat.

There was a body. No, not a body, a skeleton that had once been a body. It lay stretched out on the damp cave floor. It had no more skin so whoever it must have been was long long dead.

Naruto's head swam as he stared at it, then his head snapped back up to the symbol. There was dried blood on the wall around it, it was hardly visible against the dark stone and faded with time, but it was there in streaks like human fingers. Someone had painted this wall with their hands drenched in blood. The streaks took shape like words or letters, but it was no language that Naruto could recognize.

Naruto took a step back. "Wha-" he breathed in a low gasp. It wasn't like he hadn't seen a dead body before. He had seen Jiraiya's and he had seen cadavers in the morgue for med students while in college, but this was different. Those other bodies were ones you were supposed to see, this one was not. It was old, and forgotten, and apparently for good reason, although this reason was not clear to them.

Naruto was startled by the flash of a camera. Gaara had taken a picture of the central symbol.

"What are you doing?" Naruto asked in shock.

"We have to turn back and tell someone about this, we will have to supply them with photographs." They didn't really have the means to carry back a body, nor the desire to do so. Naruto suddenly wished he was anywhere but there. More pictures were taken and it was decided that they should go back.

They turned back the way they had come, carefully marking they path they had taken to be sure they could come back. Along the way Naruto felt like they were being stalked though the tunnels, although he knew it was only his imagination, he was thinking too much on the nightmares again. They made good time with fear in their systems. When they stopped for sleep, Naruto got none at all, all he could see was that symbol and the body, while his mind imagined all the horrible things that could have happened in this place.

He breathed a sigh of relief as they came back into familiar territory. When they crawled out of the cave it was one PM. They had gotten back hours ahead of the time they wanted to be back, but Sasuke was there nonetheless. He was sitting against his log, writing in his journal. He looked up as they emerged, confused.

"You weren't supposed to be back for hours," he said, slightly annoyed that they weren't on schedule. His expression sharpened as he saw their state; they looked exhausted and frightened. "What?" he asked with a touch of nervousness.

Naruto gave him an lost look and Gaara moved forward with the camera in hand. "We found something," he said as he turned on the machine.

Naruto watched as Sasuke leaned over to look at the pictures and saw the blood drain from his face.

"Itachi must have-" he halted himself. "Was there anything to identify him?"

Gaara shook his head, "Only the clothes. Now if you excuse me, I will be alerting the proper authorities." He walked away, phone in hand. Reception was not particularly good down in the caves.

Sasuke seemed to sway in the breeze as Gaara walked away. Naruto cautiously put a hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah..." Sasuke said distantly, "I'm fine." Although he didn't look it.

"I guess people will probably be showing up here in a while, so you should probably prepare yourself for that," Naruto breathed.

Sasuke nodded dully.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Naruto tried and failed to draw up his eyes.

"I'm fine, I just thought all of this was done with," he said, his eyes glued to the floor.

Naruto recalled him saying that he was at peace with what had happened when he was little. Dragging up a body from the cave didn't sound like it would be pleasant for him. It would unsettle the peace that had taken so long to settle. "Do you know what that symbol was?" Naruto asked curiously, he hated to ask but he also wanted badly to know.

Sasuke glanced up at him and shook his head, "I have no idea. It could mean anything, Itachi went a little weird before everything happened," he mumbled distantly, "We should have known something was wrong."

Naruto nodded sympathetically and did what he could to be comforting, although it was hard to tell if he was doing a good job.

When people started to show up it wasn't so easy as they had suspected it would be to deal with. Everything was very disorderly and Sasuke hated to see so many people on his property. Another spelunking party would have to make the long journey back to the cavern and Naruto and Gaara were too exhausted to make the trip immediately. Seeing as not too many people were qualified to go down into the caves, another member of the geology team was sent down. Sai and Lee volunteered to go. Hinata looked like she wanted to go, but she was too shy to open her mouth and then was quickly overrun by the others' ambitions.

So, while the exploration followed the path that Gaara and Naruto had taken, the police were busy interrogating Sasuke. If he knew anything then it didn't show it, he seemed just as shocked as everyone else. Despite this, the police force kept him in custody all the while. Naruto stayed close by, talking with Sasuke while they waited for the team to return with the body.

The news of this event had quickly spread into the town and everyone was talking about the new body found on Uchiha land, speculating that Sasuke was just the same as his murderer brother. Naruto received many texts from his neighbors asking what was going on or gloating in Kiba's case. Dick.

While they were waiting, the Uchiha house was searched. Sasuke hated this most of all. While it was happening he sat there with his shoulders practically shaking in anger, or irritations, it was hard to tell which.

"Relax," Naruto said, nudging the Uchiha lightly.

"I can't, they're going through my things," he said through his teeth.

"They're doing their job," Naruto assured him, "They won't find anything and then they will be gone."

"But they're going to mess everything up."

Naruto sighed, "Maybe, but it's not something that can be avoided."

When the team finally made it back the body was taken away to be analyzed. Sasuke was placed under house arrest and Naruto was sent home.

As it turned out, thanks to whoever analyzed the body, the person who had been killed was about twenty years dead, making Sasuke only six at the time that it would have happened. It would have been around that time that Itachi had killed their family and it would be very hard for such a small child to have made man sized fingerprints on the wall, as well as managing to lure and kill someone bigger than him.

The investigation turned to Itachi. The analysis of the body also showed the the boy, whoever he had been was sixteen at the time of his death, the same age as Itachi at the time of the massacre. It was initially suspected that I might have actually been Itachi down in that cave, but the dental records showed that it was a boy called Shisui Uchiha, a cousin of Sasuke's who had gone missing about six months before the event. He and Itachi had been very close, Sasuke remembered. He was both shocked and unsurprised at this revelation. He could hardly believe that his cousin would be killed in this way, but Shisui had been missing for a long time and had been judged to be dead long ago.

The symbol on the wall was also heavily looked into for cult ties or something of the like, but they turned up nothing. They asked Sasuke if he knew what it was but he didn't seem to know either. In the end it was concluded that Shisui had probably been killed by his cousin, although he had a broken ankle so maybe his death had not been entirely planned, more of a spur of the moment thing. Either way, he was dead now, and buried in the Uchiha private cemetery, a small gated area on the edge of the property. Some of the old graves seemed ancient and when Sasuke took him down to see it the whole place made his hair stand on end.

On the way down, they passed an odd bare place of grass.

"What's this?" Naruto asked, not really expecting an answer.

"That's the place where Orochimaru was struck by lightning," Sasuke replied, "Nothing has ever grown back in it's place."

Naruto gazed at the patch in shock, it was such a strange thing, blank and bare against the green grass. "Your guardian? What was he like?"

"Horrible," Sasuke replied. He didn't say anything else, he got a very strange expression on his face and they continued down to the creepy cemetery.

Sometimes Sasuke could be unsettling.

XxxX

A/N: geez it's been so long.

Thanks


	6. Chapter 6

As winter crept forward, the investigation ended as the temperature dropped dramatically. Despite now not having a reason to get together, Naruto and Sasuke still hung out as often as they could. They had become comfortable together, maybe too comfortable; who could say?

In late January going into February, the heavier snow came. At one point they had nearly a foot of snow. Naruto bought two paper thin, plastic sleds and told Sasuke that they were going out to play. They sledded down the large hill behind Sasuke's house for a few hours. Laughing and being dorks. They had some of the best times within that period.

When March came, the snow started to melt away and the rain began. It was still cold, but it was far warmer than it had been, for sure. It was slightly frustrating that they couldn't safely start exploring the cave yet, when they tried to go down the first time they found it partially flooded with water. Naruto seemed to have gotten over his fear of the cave quite nicely and was ready to jump right back into it. Distance can do that sometimes.

It was mid April before they were actually able to get back into the caves. Naruto was fully prepared to get right back into it. Unfortunately, despite his initial enthusiasm, getting back into cave exploration was both harder and easier than expected. Naruto was feeling exhausted in a general sense, but he felt more at home in the cave now. He was more drawn than repelled, he had missed crawling around in it but it became hard to find the energy.

XxxX

It was a hot, humid day in July, Naruto felt as if the air was trying to strangle him to death. He and Sasuke had plans to go hiking down to a river on his property, but now he wondered if he even had the energy. He dragged himself outside and the world swam before his eyes for a frightening moment before he recovered himself.

The slip in his sense of balance irritated him, everything seemed to irritate him now. It was Saturday and he was glad he didn't have to work today, he wouldn't be able to stomach it. Maybe he would ask Sasuke if he could just take a nap while he was over there. Honestly, he shouldn't be driving right now, but he didn't care. No on else ever come down this road so he was only endangering himself.

Sasuke gave him an odd look as he answered the door, letting him inside the gloriously cool house.

"You look terrible," Sasuke said, looking him up and down in disapproval.

"I'm fine," Naruto assured him.

"Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"We're have lunch first."

"Fine." He wasn't in the mood for conversation.

They left for the river an hour later, after a wonderful lunch that Naruto barely tasted in his hazy existence. The hike seemed to pass through tar, painfully slowly and boilingly hot. Every time Sasuke said that maybe they should turn back, Naruto snapped at him saying he was fine and that he could manage. He only allowed them to turn back when they met their formerly decided turnaround point.

The trip back seemed twice as long and Naruto's head felt too light. The house was almost back in sight, peeping out from between the trees, but the world around him wobbled and blurred. He was panting heavily.

Sasuke was watching him warily, as if trying to judge how much longer he could make it. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Naruto tried to answer, but his tongue couldn't seem to form words. He was standing and suddenly the ground shifted under his feet, he was falling. He stared up at the clear sky, Sasuke's serious face swam above him the same strange look he'd given him when he'd knocked on his door was visible. The blond blinked once, twice, and then his eyes rolled back and he was unconscious. Whether it was from he heat or exhaustion he did not know.

XxxX

Gradually, Naruto came back into awareness. He couldn't seem to find the energy to lift his head. When he had the strength, he looked up. He was in a room, no longer outside, but the room was unfamiliar. It was moderately sized, but it was stuffed with strange objects and many many books. From where he sat, he could see the symbol from the cave on one of the many book covers.

Where was he? What was going on? Where was Sasuke?

There was a movement out of the corner of his eyes and his head snapped to the side to see Sasuke rise from an old, warn looking chair.

"Good, you're awake," he said in a calm greeting.

Naruto felt sick, whatever this was it couldn't be good. He must be dreaming, his dreams always felt realistic, but never this realistic.

Sasuke moved in front if him and leaned down to his height. "Don't be so worried, Naruto," he said in his usual droning voice.

Naruto jerked away. "What's going on?" he demanded.

"Hn," Sasuke said in disapproval, "You'll see, but for now I have some things to do." He moved about the room gathering supplies and setting things onto the floor as required. All the while Naruto struggled against the binds he was in. "Stop struggling," he suggested offhandedly, "you aren't going anywhere."

"Aw, come on Sasuke. Please don't turn out to be the creep Kiba said you were." Naruto pleaded.

Sasuke let out a dry laugh, "I'm sorry to disapoint you, but being creepy in written into the Uchiha way of life, although I can guarantee that I am not a vampire as your dog friend seems intent on implying. Creepiness is just coded into my DNA."

"Then what are you?" Naruto was afraid to know.

"I am an Uchiha," he grinned a twisted smile and for a moment Naruto could have sworn his eyes glowed red, although it was only a flicker of candle light playing tricks on his eyes. The room was filled with old fashion candles, there was no electricity installed. The sight was even more strange because Naruto he'd never seen a grin so wide on Sasuke's face.

Around him Sasuke scattered things onto the floor. He threw down leaves of assorted plants, and drew markings on the floor as he walked around the chair where Naruto was stuck. The shape he drew was a spiral, keeping the geologist in the center and around this spiral there was a circle of what looked like flames jutting out and eight points. Then he started sprinkling a white powder all over the floor.

"What is that?" he asked cautiously.

"Bones ground to powder," Sasuke replied, although he was completely focused on his task. In his mind he was back in the years of his youth, being drilled by Orochimaru on the proper way to set up a ritual. "And before you ask, they belonged to my old caretaker Orochimaru." Thank whatever gods may be out there watching them that the man was dead. Years ago the man had gone out to gather wet moss for a ritual when the lightning had stuck him and that was no accent, Sasuke was much better with this sorcery than the snake man was. Sasuke hadn't blinked an eye when he had killed the man, it didn't matter. He had been waiting to legally an adult and as soon as he was able to, he got rid of that horrible creature. He had been the first and only person Sasuke had killed and he still felt no regret for it, he didn't feel much of anything.

"How did you-"

"The cemetery is on the property, it wasn't difficult to get a bag of bones out." he dismissed. He had finished his handiwork and took a step back to admire it. "Perfect," he breathed, setting a small clay bowl at Naruto's feet.

Naruto was panicking inside, not knowing what would happen next.

"You know, Naruto, you are exactly what I needed. I thought I would never be able to do this until you arrived," Sasuke almost smiled, "Well, I supposed I could have found a way, but you made things so much easier."

"What are you going to do?"

"Ah, ah, ah, wouldn't want to spoiled the surprise now, would I?" Sasuke tutted.

Naruto growled angrily and struggled to no avail.

Sasuke laughed lightly, "I suppose now is the time for my evil villain monologue where I tell you that everything was a part of my plan to capture you and take your blood. That wouldn't be untrue, but I can't say that I didn't enjoy it," he sighed, moving his hand to touch the blond and snatched it back when Naruto tried to bite him, "I wish things could be different, but they can't. So, I won't waste any time being upset over things. Then again I was never one to let things go easily."

The blood that Sasuke apparently planned to take ran cold. "What do you mean take my blood? I thought you said you weren't a vampire."

"I do not plan on sucking the blood out of you, I simply need you and your very special blood to complete my ritual," Sasuke explained lazily.

"Why is my blood so special?"

"Because of your unique pedigree. You never met your father for good reason." Sasuke smirked, "You are a jinchūriki, half human and half other."

Naruto must have looked at him like he was crazy because he started to laugh.

"I don't blame you for being suspicious, but you'll see in time. For as long as that knowledge may last. Your father was a Kyūbi, a spirit of fire." The ancient people of japan had called them kitsune, fox spirits, although they were neither fox nor spirit. They were real beings and they came from somewhere far from their little planet, somewhere off in the void of space.

"You're crazy," Naruto spat.

Sasuke shrugged, "We'll see." He stepped up to Naruto and placed a pale hand on his cheek. This time Naruto only jerked away, although his body wanted to curl into the touch. Damn him.

He heard Sasuke sigh, "I confess that I am reluctant to do this, I will probably miss you. I've never actually had a friend before and here I am again with the talking, attempting to delay what must inevitably come."

"It doesn't have to be inevitable," Naruto tried.

"I'm afraid it does, my apologies. I should just suck it up and get it over with."

Slipping the hand up into Naruto's hair, Sasuke pulled the blond hair back to hold his head steady. From the steady movement, Naruto wouldn't have thought him hesitant as his words suggested. He didn't grab the hair painfully, but with enough force to get the job done. Then he retrieved a dagger from seemingly nowhere. Naruto tried to struggle away, but it was no use. The cold metal bit into the soft skin of his cheek and was pulled back in a quick line, it was repeated twice more on his right side and three on his left, until he had six bloody cuts in the shape of whiskers. After each cut Sasuke would drop blood from the knife into the clay bowl.

When he was done he stepped back out of the chalk lines and began chanting as he moved his hands in rapid motion. His words were jumbled and impossible to understand, whatever he was saying wasn't in English.

Naruto felt his head swim, he felt very strange. His eyes were playing tricks on him, the room seemed far too large and the shadows seemed to dance with Sasuke's chanting. Sasuke with his sharp red eyes, staring hard into Naruto. His eyes looked very strange, three black dots surrounded the pupal in his red corneas. It made the hair on Naruto's skin crawl. He glanced down and noticed his own skin was glowing a pale yellow-orange color. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't. His vision blurred and stretched as he lost consciousness, feeling completely out of control.

Sasuke smirked as the spirit inside his blond friend was called into light. The head from the being was immense and the horrible scream it let loose would sent the most fearless running in terror, but Sasuke stood his ground and kept his chanting. He could see the shadows grow more and more solid as he did so, he reached out for his lost brother, searching in the dark unknown for a connection of any kind.

He finally grasped it and held tight, pulling it into the physical world, through the fox spirit. And then he had it. The glowing face of the fox changed back to the face of Naruto. The blond's eyes snapped open and when he looked up, the black pinwheels of the Mangekyō Sharingan stared back at Sasuke. The power behind that gaze was palpable, like a physical pressure in the room.

"Itachi," Sasuke breathed, in disbelief.

"Little brother," Itachi said through the voice of Naruto. It didn't sound like Naruto, the inflections were all wrong and there was the undertone of another voice.

"I have come to retrieve your sight," Sasuke informed him, breath coming quickly in excitement.

"Did you now?" A look of distain curled upon Naruto's lips, "And are you under the impression that I am dead then?"

"Are you not?" After so long, how could he not be?

"It is not for me to say, but I will not give you my eyes."

"You don't have a choice," Sasuke insisted angrily, he wasn't about to give up after coming so far.

"Don't I?"

"No, I am going to take them. What are you using them for anyway?" If he wasn't dead Sasuke couldn't imagine what he was doing.

"I can see much and more with these eyes and do a good many things. I'm not about to give them up anytime soon."

A sudden dread gripped Sasuke and he felt himself become immobile. Tendrils of power gripped him. He cursed and tried to pull back, but there was nothing to pull away from. His face was held still and something plunged into his right eye socket below the eyeball and above it. The force squeezed his eye and yanked it out of place with enough force to snap of the optic nerve like it was nothing. Sasuke let out a horrible scream and Itachi, in Naruto's body, let out a cackle and made for the other eye. Soon enough the other eye was gone, both laying abandoned and slightly squished on the floor.

"That should teach you a lesson, brother, for as long as you may remember it," Itachi snickered.

Naruto's eyes rolled back into his head and steam began to rise off his skin, he burned the chain he sat on and the ropes that bound him fell to the ground. After a moment of stillness, something hot as the sun came pouring out from inside him, directly up toward the ceiling. When it met the wooden banisters it moved through it like nothing, but orange flames kicked across ceiling, catching on the wood. The house was on fire and Sasuke was screaming.

When Naruto shuddered into awareness, he was surrounded in heat, he could hardly breathe. He coughed, raising a hand to cover his mouth. His eyes moved quickly over the room. Sasuke was still clenching his face and making broken noises, he was no use. There were two doors to the room and one was cut off from the fire. Naruto took the other door. This one led out into the cave, strangely enough. There was no going back now. He plunged forward into the darkness. Shadows chased him as he when faster and faster. He didn't stop, his ears were rushing with blood and his heart was pumping at a rate that seemed impossible.

He felt like he'd been going for days, where was he? There was no light, he was crawling through total darkness. He tried turning back, cursing himself for not waiting for the fire to end and to escape. He couldn't find the exit.

When he was just about to give up and die, he saw a light ahead of him. He crawled toward it as quickly as he could. It was a person, a body. Laying on the cave floor and covered in a bunch of small glowing mushrooms, there was a body. Naruto crawled toward it, despite it's ominous nature, examining the mushrooms. Hinata would love this, cave biology at it's finest.

He sucked in a breath as the eyes opened, their gaze landing directly on him. He froze, and felt pain take his body.

A trickle was felt down the front of his shirt and he noticed he had a hand sized whole in his chest. Oh.

XxxX

The body of Sasuke Uchiha was found barrier under the rubble of his burned and collapsed home. The fire's origin was in that room as well, suspected to be the various candles the room contained. Naruto Uzumaki was never found, although his car was on the Uchiha property. It was suspected that he had also died in that same fire. His body was never recovered.

Initially, it was thought that he many have escaped into the cave but various rescue parties uncovered no body. They did, however, discover a new spices of mushroom. The discovery of the fungi went to Hinata, who fervently aided in the search for Naruto.

With the house burned, and no one to inherit it, the National Park Service bought the Uchiha land in order to better observe and examine the Konoha Cave System and its many dark places.

The end.

XxxX

A/N: I'm sorry, I just really wanted to get this done :( it's pretty lazy written and haphazardly thrown together. I mean you can tell that a lot of stuff in the end should have been way more foreshadowed and built up but I really couldn't be asked. I'm not even that big a Naruto fan, so I'm not even really sure why I wrote this, I think I was just reading too much HP Lovecraft and had to get it out of my system. Anyway, if you got to the end thanks and I hope you didn't hate it too much :)

Maybe someday I'll go back and fix all this mess, but I kind of doubt it.

Live long and prosper.


End file.
